Make An Old-Time Strawberry Barrel

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The combination of dark winter-cover and the barrel's exposed location will warm the soil and get your plants growing up to a month earlier than garden-planted strawberries. Remove the winter protection as soon as temperatures begin to moderate in late February or early March.

After the soil thaws, water with a rich manure tea or weak solution of soluble packaged plant food to give the plants a kick-start. Soak the barrel with a trickling hose any time you go without rain for more than a week during the season.

Then, all year long, year after year, you'll enjoy a vista of bright green foliage, white and yellow flowers, and red berries. And you will feast on an abundance of fresh, soil-free, and bugless fruit from overbearing plants grown in an old-time, space-conserving strawberry barrel.

STRETCH YOUR HARVEST

A strawberry barrel won't produce huge crops, but the high flavor, tangy scent, and bright crimson color of just a few fruit can be easily extended.

COLOR: Like us, do you try to avoid any packaged food containing Red Dye #3 or other artificial colors or flavors? Know how fresh strawberries put a long-lasting stain on your fingers, little kids' Tshirts, and your jelly bag? Let several bug-bit fruit ripen till soft and deep red (relatively tasteless, but rich in color). Crush and use the juice to add color to apple jelly, fruit punch, or homemade ice pops or applesauce. You can also mix it with vinegar to boil-dye white cotton cloth a lovely strawberry pink.
ZEST: When yours is the only kitchen in the neighborhood to have garden-fresh strawberries in September, slice them thin, cover with sugar, and let steep to a luscious, fragrant syrup. Mix with equal parts sugar and plain gelatin to make real strawberry-flavor jelled desert. Drizzle a spoonful over pudding or custard, vanilla ice cream, or fall apple pie to add zing to a pallid desert.
PERFUME: When frost catches a few berries, let them air-dry on the plant. Bring the dry berries inside, crush, and add their fragrance to scented sugars or mix into your potpourris and sachets.

—Martha Vivian

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