We have already gotten three pounds of strawberries from our garden so far this season. Nothing beats seeing my daughter pick (and sometimes eat) strawberries right off of the plants. Each year my garden becomes closer to paying for itself/saving us money. The main reasons it hasn’t are because I keep expanding it every year. This year I added a blackberry bush and more blueberries. I’m still hoping to add raspberries. While I know that each year I defer planting fruit trees also defers the time they will take to mature for fruit production, I’ve decided that this just isn’t the year either. The trees are expensive and while I know they will certainly pay for themselves eventually, in the short term I’m looking at $75-$100 for two columnar apple trees and a dwarf self-pollinating peach tree. I also bought more plants this year rather than growing my own from seed. With the new baby I decided not to push myself too hard. Our local garden center that was within walking distance closed at the end of last summer so now I pay more for fewer lower quality plants at the home improvement store. But so far the pepper and tomato plants I purchased are looking good.
Still on my list of addition improvements are a composter, either stationary or rotating, since we are terrible at reigning in our current compost pile. Basically it has become a mound of very well fed weeds because of our poor turning practices. Next year maybe I’ll get around to adding the additional raised beds and fruit trees I want. But for now I’m enjoying my strawberry boxes.
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