We're having an Indian summer in Krasnoyarsk! It's warm and sunny, and the flowers are still in full bloom. The trees still have emerald leaves, but the birches and maples are starting to turn yellow. And we're enjoying strawberries at the dacha.
In the spring, I bought four everbearing strawberry bushes of the Queen Elizabeth variety. And over the summer, I had a small bed.
I dug up a few bushes and shared them with my neighbor.
Strawberries (well, I'm used to calling them strawberries) reproduce quickly using runners. Now both the bushes I planted in May and the new ones grown from the runners are bearing fruit.
Every day we pick a small amount of berries.
The berries are delicious and aromatic. The flesh is firm and can be stored for three days even without refrigeration. Sometimes we pick them in the evening, and the grandson won't stop by until the next day to enjoy them; the strawberries don't spoil.
I liked the variety, it’s not capricious, it grows quickly, and produces many flower stalks.
The purchased bushes already had flower stalks, quickly formed berries and ripened at the same time as Merchant's wifeThe bushes simultaneously bore ripe berries and new flower stalks, as well as tendrils from which new bushes quickly grew and immediately began to bloom.
The berries themselves are beautiful, appetizing, and large, especially the first ones. The berries ripened in July and August. Now that we're past the middle of September, there are plenty of berries again. The nights are already chilly, but the strawberries are filling out and ripening.
I probably need to cover it with a covering material to ensure it ripens before the frost. And trim off the new flower stalks.
I picked some berries for my grandson and decided to weigh the largest ones. Each berry weighs 30 grams.
I read on the Internet that the berries weigh up to 50 grams.
The strawberries were disease-free all summer; the leaves were clean and spotless, with no rot or pests. Interestingly, other strawberry varieties were growing nearby. At the beginning of summer, as soon as the flower stalks began to bloom, I discovered weevils on them. Then mold appeared on some of the berries (there was a lot of rain), and by the end of summer, the leaves were covered in spots.
And Elizabeth still has green leaves and ripe berries.
I really hope that the Queen Elizabeth strawberry variety survives the winter well and doesn’t freeze.