We have been working hard in the Teaching Garden. We have basically finished planting out the entire garden! Meaning this week there are not a ton of planting updates because we spent a lot of the week weeding, watering, and doing some basic garden maintenance.
This week we also covered our strawberry rows in preparation for strawberry season! We already have many strawberry flowers, and a few green strawberries. We cant wait to eat them! We cover our strawberry rows to keep out birds, squirrels, and rats (😬). If we didn't cover the rows we would barely have any strawberries because all of these critters would likely eat them before they are fully ripe and ready to pick. Here they are in all their covered glory. We cover them with a mesh chicken wire type thing. We use stakes to weigh down each side so that its easy to lift it up and get inside to harvest.
Lastly, our Pawpaw tree is flowering! Pawpaw flowers are beautiful and hang like little bells. The first picture shows what they look like hanging, and the second shows what they look like if you hold it up to see inside. If you are not familiar with Pawpaws, they are a fruit that is native to this area! Their fruit is about palm sized, green on the outside and yellow on the inside. We got only one Pawpaw fruit last year (pictured below). They are custardy with a texture similar to a mango and banana-ish taste. They can be found in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other states around the eastern US. They were never cultivated on a large scale in the US because they are quite delicate and ripen to the point of fermentation soon after being picked from the tree which makes them hard to ship and store.
Tune in next week for more updates!