The transplanted strawberry plants are looking quite good, with lots of foliage and some flowers popping up. As the days go by, more flowers and, suddenly, strawberries showed for the first time. As I watched the strawberries get larger, my local birds also took note. Since I had sunflower seeds located close by, my feathered friends had a bird’s eye view of the strawberries.

Last week I noticed the first of the red strawberries, a bit of a surprise for me, since I didn’t expect them this early. More surprising, however, was that a bird had also spotted the red fruit and ate half of the berry.

I bought some more bird netting, having used up my first netting on the cold crops. I placed the netting on top of the strawberries and we are now able to pick and eat the red strawberries without worrying whether the birds got them first.

Today was warm, getting up to 83º, so I was able to get out and plant pickles (4), cucumbers (2), Peppers (4), and tomatoes (7). The tomatoes planted from the hill back to the house are Early Treat, Beefeater, Celebrity Plus, Beefeater and two more Early Treats.

On May 7, I planted 5 tomato plants. Two Red Deuce, two Campari and one Better Boy. These went in by the raspberry plants and next to the Eva potatoes.