Monday, September 10, 2012

From the Reluctant Farmer: The Strawberry Experiment

First off I love fresh strawberries.  I don't really care for the ones at the store, but right off the plant they are amazing. This year I decided I was going to plant my hanging baskets out front with strawberries instead of my normal flowers. I still planted flowers in my pots on the porch but wanted to do something with beauty and function. Happily the green house outlet down the street from us also had strawberries on sale so I was in luck.

Andrew is a bit camera shy but check out those feet.

Can you tell which side is the fertilized side?
Now the Urban Farmer once told me that rabbit poop is the best natural fertilizer there is, so I went out to Andrew Rabbit's cage and thanked him for his good work.  I think he said you are welcome as he wiggled his nose at me and hopped to the front of his living quarters. I took my bucket up to the front of the house and started planting my strawberries. Well, after I planted the first 2 baskets for the north side of the porch I realized I had forgotten to put the rabbit poo in and decided this was an excellent time to see if the Urban Farmer was really right.
 So I left the first two sans poop and put poop in the last two baskets.
In the beginning it really didn't seem to make a difference. Both sets of plants grew and had some berries all were delicious. Now 2 months later there is a very noticeable difference in size and, I have a ton of runners coming off the rabbit poop baskets and just a couple off the others.


Andrew's Baskets

Baskets without Andrew. :(

Who's ears you calling Big!?!


I'm just going to eat this food and make you more poop.
Sometimes the Urban Farmer is right but don't anyone tell her I said that okay!?!


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3 comments:

  1. Ah, the power of poop! Nice work Andrew! Sadly, no bunnies here, maybe that's what our strawberries are lacking. Although the turkeys, goats, and chickens do seem to do their fair share ;)

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    1. Yes, poop is a wonderful thing on a homestead! I use the chicken poo too, but I hate that I have to compost it for a season before I can use it. With rabbit poo you can use it directly off of the hutch floor. I am an instant gratification kind of girl! :)

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