Each of the boxes above contains 1,000 strawberry plants. On Monday I went to Red Bluff, 2 hours north of the farm, to pick up 17,000 plants. These plants were dug from the fields last week. We will plant them this coming weekend. We normally plant in August. This year we had substantial losses due to the hot weather and the vigor of the plants. On consulting with the nursery we have decided to move our planting date from the beginning of August, when we are extremely busy on the farm to the beginning of November when things are a little more sane. The nursery says our first picking date in April and our yield will be unaffected. These plants will show us if this is the case.
There are two trial varieties; Portola and Monterey, in this batch which we will mark and have taste tests on the Strawberry days next May.