Make Strawberry Picking Easier

Make Strawberry Picking Easier

With it being Spring in America at this time of the year, there is a lot to do in the garden and orchards on our Homesteads. There is planting to be done and spraying to be carried our in the orchards. As the growing season continues there is always weeding and fertilising to be carried out.

As summer approaches the need to keep up watering is an ever increasing thing for the gardener.

Our seasons are definitely changing; the winters are getting colder and the summer temperatures are ever increasing. This put a lot of stress not just on us humans but most definitely on our gardens too.

For many people now the growing season lengths are changing. For some around the world their season is becoming shorter and for others it will be getting longer. If we want our gardens to survive and thrive - we then need to make some changes to how we do things.

I always encourage folks to keep a Garden Journal so that they may be able to look back and see what changes are indeed taking place.

I know this year that many gardeners got caught out with late and unexpected frosts right after they had planted their tender seedlings. For many the winter freeze went well past when all is normally thawed out. For these people the growing season has changed.

When Living in New Zealand we had an excellent rule to work by. It was a warning of what was to come and what to expect and it never saw us wrong. If we had a hard cold winter then we got a hard hot summer. And it worked in reverse too – If we got a mild warm and wet winter then summer would not pack a punch heat wise and we would generally get more rain than normal.

Every location around the world is different. Two counties’ side by side can be very different.

As gardeners we must learn to read natures signs. Gardening books are awesome for ideas and basic information but they become useless when we need direction on specific planting dates, frost dates etc.

I don’t mean this in a derogatory manner at all as gardening books definitely have their place, but simple to point out that what can be done in say Oregon, USA will not work for someone living in the Philippines or Australia for example. Just as a gardening book written by someone sitting in their Tropical Queensland home in Australia will not be of any real use to someone living in Alaska.

We need to learn what goes on in our garden and the only way that we can do that is by observing and recording such things as the first frost date, the last frost date, rainfall and if you are really keen the temperatures.

After 2 or 3 years pass doing this, you will see a distinct pattern evolving. By doing this you will have a far better chance of making your gardens thrive and produce as much food as you can grow from them.

As food prices around the world sore upwards in price it is becoming more and more necessary for us to grow at least some of our own food so that we can help ease the stress on our wallets. The better prepared we are to do this then the higher our success rate will be.

Here in Australia we are more in the clean-up mode now as Autumn draws to an end and Winter begins knocking at the door. Most of the deciduous trees and vines have lost their leaves apart from the odd determined ones that attempt to put Winter off a few more days or weeks.

We do not get the dramatic leaf colour change that I loved to see so much in New Zealand but there is still that autumn smell in the air that is so distinctive at this time of the year, to remind me of what we left behind.

The Frangipani have finished blooming now and soon their leave too will drop at which time we can once again take cuttings for propagating if we so desire.

This time of year brings forth the beginning of pruning, applying winter oils to the fruit trees and of mulching once again to retain moisture and just a general good clean up in the gardens.

I hope that you have all enjoyed these few examples from Mother Earth News that I have shared on the Blog here with you all today. 

Mother Earth News is an amazing resource for information on just about any homesteading topic that you could possibly imagine. I really do encourage those that are interested in perusing a Homesteading or Self-Sufficient lifestyle to look through the amazing archives there. 

Here is the Main Web Address: www.motherearthnews.com.

This Article on making strawberry picking easier is the last one that I will share today. It is so simple in its design but holds far more uses than just for making picking strawberries easier. It would make gardening with raised beds a lot easier, picking blueberries ad any other soft fruit for that matter.

So often with Homesteading, Self-Sufficiency and Frugal living we need to look at things in a different light so that we can always get the most out of what we have and what we do. The more sustainable we can be the better too. With this last article, I am sure that we can make this with bits and pieces that are laying around the place. An old bicycle seat form the shed, a piece of left over piping from a plumbing job, a small piece of scrap steel from a junk yard and either some tie down strapping from a busted one or some pieces of rope is all that is needed in a rustic sense.

I give credit to the writers of each of the articles I shared today. They put this information together in a far better way than I could have. Please go to the “Mother Earth News Site”  and have a good look around there. I am sure that there will be something there for everyone.

Enjoy this last article and what is left of your Spring or Autumn weather where ever you might be and I will catch up with another day.

Make Strawberry Picking Easier!

Follow this simple plan to build a strawberry picking stool.

March/April 1984

http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/strawberry-picking-stool-zmaz84zloeck.aspx

By G.R. Osborne

The Strawberry Picker's Delight is easy to build and use.

Few flavours can compete with the succulent sweetness of a fresh strawberry. Then again, few fruits are as back breakingly difficult to harvest as these low-to-the-ground red edibles. However, berry lovers, take heart: I've designed a contraption that should ease many of the aches and pains so familiar to strawberry picking.

I came upon the design idea for this device by accident when, about a year ago, some friends of mine in Oregon asked me to help them find a way to speed up their strawberry harvest.

Dedicated inventor (and friend) that I am, I couldn't let them down, so I took to the drawing board right away. Even though I tried everything I could think of, nothing looked promising. I was almost ready to give up until, while visiting a farm sale, I spotted an old-fashioned one-legged milking stool with a waist strap. Could the perfect solution to my friends' picking woes, I asked myself, already have been invented? In any case, I bought the strap-on seat and gave it to my friends to let them answer that question for themselves.

Several months later, I visited Oregon during the picking season to see how things were going. Well, the word had gone out that "the inventor" was on the scene, and I was treated like a visiting monarch. As it turned out, that crazy milking stool had worked so well that it had been irreparably broken from overuse.

Now vintage milking seats are mighty hard to come by these days, but—as I said—I'm an inventor. It took me little time to come up with the design for a simulated one-legged milking stool. So, if you're a strawberry grower on a small or large scale (or if you're simply a home gardener with lots of low-down chores to do), you might just profit from my easy-to-follow plans for the Strawberry Picker's Delight.

Please click the link below to go to the original site to see the diagram:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/print.aspx?id={4EFF8841-622E-4539-B7D4-4AC81EEE8103}#ixzz33EfiDRaj