Strawberry plants

Our strawberry plants went wild last year. I didn't know how wild until I started digging them up.

It all started Saturday morning when I heard my hubby get up, get dressed and fire up the truck. I was still asleep because I had stayed up late blogging the night before. Please note that my last blog entry was written past midnight. And on a laptop. So that is why all the non-capitilization and why its a bit hard to read.

Anyway, I heard him fire up the truck and knew he was going to rent a rototiller that we had discussed a few weeks back. I hurried and got dressed. He got home and started the rototiller up. I hurriedly rescued some onions that had come up from last year. Then I started on my strawberry patch.

Last year we started out with 49 plants. 25 bare root Quinalt ever bearing strawberries and 24 Fort Laramie plants that we got at a greenhouse shop for a great price. For a couple of reasons I let them run last year. Meaning I let them make as many new plants by sending runners that they could. I was hoping to end up with about 100 plants or so.

As I dug plants up I realized that I had way more than 100 plants. I introduced the idea of selling the plants $5 for 25 plants on Craigslist. Hubby liked the idea and I posted on Craigslist that I had around 200 plants or so to sell.

My first call was for 25 plants and my second call was for as many as I could dig up. By the time the 2nd lady came I had counted out 260 plants. She was in a hurry so couldn't wait for me to count out any more.

I realized I had a lot more still to get rid of at this point so posted again on Craigslist.

A couple came by for 50 more and then a weird guy came by for 100.

I again realized I still had tons and so asked for it to be announced in Relief Society that I had 200 or so plants to get rid of. One lady took 100, another lady took 50. Then another call from the Craigslist ad for 25 and then another lady took the rest (89).

I kept 225 plants. I hadn't intended to keep so many but hubby built me some large garden boxes and according to the square foot gardening guy its 4 plants per square foot.

Anyway, did you do the math? Its about 900 plants or so. And considering the fact that I didn't count plants that were struggling, and I also included 5 or so extra plants with each order (to ensure that people got at least the amount of healthy plants they wanted).... well the numbers are huge.

From 50 plants to over 900. Who would have guessed?

I made $90 from my Craigslist ad. I didn't charge for the ones I gave to family and friends from church.

This will help us pay for some plants for the garden! I'm even thinking about doing this again. I just have to find the right location. And a loose soil would be a plus since they would be easier to dig up. The initial investment would be buying 50 or so plants. That would run me about $12 or so. So A neat profit without much care besides remembering to water the plants. And a bonus of strawberries!

For some reason I'm full of money making ideas right now. The other thought I have is about getting a rooster. Then my chicken eggs are fertile. Then I buy/borrow another silkie (very broody birds) and keep them busy raising chicks for me. But this idea fails because of the cost of feeding those chickens. But people around here are willing to spend $5-$7 per laying bird. And I could just sell the eggs for ~ 2.50 per dozen before they are sold. But you also have the smell. And we would need a bigger hen house. I also wouldn't want more than 25 birds at a time. So don't know if this one will ever happen.

It sure is fun to come up with all of these ideas.