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June 15, 2011

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Why not grow your own strawberries? It's not that hard. You can do it pots. Make your own potting mix: 1/3 peat, 1/3 compost, 1/3 vermiculite. I mix some bokashi (Google it) in with the potting mix. Nothing like your own berries. Raspberries aren't that hard either although you need some posts and wires and you have to prune them once a year.
From the great video tour of your place and from my recall of it you could be producing a lot of food.

Randy, we've made a few attempts to grow strawberries in pots/planters. That didn't work very well. Given the many deer who frequent our yard, for a "real" food garden we'd have to build a high fence -- as our neighbors do who want a vegetable garden.

Given all the time and trouble it'd take to do this, we've concluded that buying from local farmers is the best way for us to get fresh local fruits and vegetables. And sometimes we reap the bounty of neighbors with a garden who find themselves with too much zucchini or whatever on their hands.

I would love to buy OG strawberries from a farmer, or u-pick them around Salem, but apparently none are to be found, unfortunately. The pesticides used on crops are not just detrimental for human health, remember, but for other forms of life too. I wonder WHY we can't get OG strawberries around here?

Salem Wednesday Market (downtown) has at least one stand with organic local berries—Denison's. They are from Corvallis and do not come to the Saturday Market. Their berries are the same price as the other nonorganic berries at the Wednesday Market, but they are more expensive than the Salem Heights market berries, which are the cheapest I've seen around for local berries.

We've got them in our flower bed and they grow like weeds! An old roommate planted them years ago, so I'm not sure how hard they were to start, but I do nothing to them now and they keep spreading and producing more and more fruit. (We're down in Corvallis). Maybe you just didn't have them in the right environment? Not sure if they need sun or shade more.

I really appreciate supporting local and I do when I can but not at the cost of my health . I know the pesticides , herbicides cannot be seen or tasted but just imagine they could be, we wouldn't eat anything that was sprayed . You know the old saying " what you don't know won't hurt you" well what you can't taste or see does. Growing up on a farm i didnt know that people even sprayed chemicals on food , weve become so mass producing that we've forgotten what it means to eat healthy.How great it would be if everyone like you would just refuse to buy the pesticidic ones, I know that it would make a difference. I finally crested the hump myself and with every person that I can influence I'll advise them to do the same.

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