My family is just starting out on this adventure to re-connect with nature, and move away from reliance. And it all started with a Strawberry plant.
My husband and I have decided to take on this adventure and slowly move towards more sustainability and less dependence.
That’s not to say that we don’t love our community, there are a lot of advantages to having a community that can support families. And we feel we have found one of the best, our kids love their sports and friends. But there are a lot of things out there that don’t reflect our family values.
Now, our mission is to bring some of those values to our family, friends, and community. We are starting small, creating family memories by working on homestead projects that involve our kids and build up our family connections.
Starting Small
We started with a few small strawberry plants in the backyard. I had the kids water the strawberries every other day. They loved to watch the plants start flowering and then grow a juicy strawberry right in the middle of the flower.
As we started researching how to care for strawberries we found they do need a thorough watering during the flowering season to produce bigger berries for them to eat.
We also found they do well when fed every 6-8 weeks during the summer. We used this fertilizing blend because its organic and ready for both indoor and outdoor plants.
Strawberry Plants Reproduce on the Vine
When the strawberry plant is in its reproductive phase you’ll see shoots branching out from the mother plant. If these shoots can build roots in the soil they will grow a new plant.
This is how our small strawberry patch of 3-4 plants turned into over 50 strawberry plants lining our back fence. It was an amazing process to see nature take its course and give my kids favorite food without stores, preservatives, or bug sprays.
Strawberry Topping
For the past two years, we’ve managed to freeze strawberries to use throughout winter and made strawberry topping that lasts through the winter.
One of the best feelings I have ever had, is knowing I’m feeding my kids something we produced naturally. This topping was just two ingredients. Strawberries and Sugar (I also made a special batch with monk fruit extract to reduce the impact on my blood sugar).
Smash the strawberries in a pot and start to simmer, when the pot starts to heat up add the sugar and coat the strawberries with sugar to extract the juices. Let the mix simmer for about 10-15 minutes on low, do not over heat or the strawberries will burn.
Let the strawberries cool and place in a bag to freeze or jar.
Enjoy your strawberries!!!
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are ‘affiliate links’. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission.
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