Strawberry Fields Forever

Some of you have been curious about our greenhouse of hydroponic strawberries. I haven't said much about them, since it's mostly Jon's project, but I thought I would devote an entry to its progression.

Lucky for us, Jon has been pretty committed to taking pictures of the same plant every week:

Planting Day, March 1st

March 9th

March 16th

March 22nd

Then a few weeks went by when the kids and I must have kept him too busy to get out there with a camera. The next picture I can find was last Monday, April 7th.

Since it was Zephyr's 4th birthday, we thought it apropos for him to taste the first strawberry.

He liked it. He really liked it. He really really liked it. With great sadness, we've had to ban him from independent greenhouse carousing, since he can't resist picking any strawberry he can reach, no matter how much we try to convince him that they will taste much better when ripe. We should have known- he did the same thing to our raspberry plant at the age of one:

Our neighbor Carrie spent 9 hours helping Jon when the plants came in, so of course she was invited to the first tasting. (My mom was also in town and helped. She'll get to eat some berries on her next visit in May.)

I don't think I've seen Jon this happy since our wedding day.

And Jubi gives a solid endorsement to the produce of Zubilee Farms.

I keep fantasizing about strawberry shortcake, strawberry ice cream, chocolate-covered strawberries, strawberry pancakes, and above all, strawberry jam. Jon says he can't imagine getting tired of just eating them raw. Since our biggest harvest day so far was about six berries, we haven't had the chance to test Jon's palate or my recipes. With 500 plants, I'm hoping that day is right around the corner!