Strawberry Hill Farms, Part 2

Let's dive back into the action and see more of the illustrious Strawberry Hill Farms!

We left off in the building containing the purple shamrocks. As I was trying to choose between them, I happened to glance over and see this little jewel among the foliage.

In my experience, climbing plants turn into more of a problem than an ornament, but I could make an exception here.

Here's a random herb corner. I couldn't find any on this trip, but Strawberry Hill stocks a cultivar of sage that's variegated green and creamy white. It was ornamental and edible!





This is the smallest wandering jew I've seen at this place. Most of them are massive. (Sneak preview of an upcoming post: I may or may not have obtained one or more wandering jews.)

Here's a wall of wandering jews and other hanging plants. Also featuring geraniums!

I'm not a huge fan of these flowers, but I wonder how they produce different colors of flowers. Are there multiple plants in one container, or does the plant just make different pigments on different blooms?

A diverse array of geraniums, from white to dark red to lavender and everywhere in between.

Here's a special Scott cameo, pictured with my new purple shamrock. He was very patient with me, but you can see the "Can we go now?" in his eyes.

As you can see, it's very jungle-y in some of these greenhouses. I don't know how I'd ever navigate in here. The farm uses its space efficiently, though.

And we end up for today in a neverending field of tomatoes. Who knows how many varieties are in just this shot, let alone the whole building.

What jewels of the plant world have you seen lately? Have you ever been dumbfounded by the sheer volume of plants in a location?

Next post: the last of Strawberry Hill.

Another Plant Sale! (Part 2)

Now I'll bring you the other half of the plant sale pictures! The unfortunate weather really hurt our plant sale, and I had to move a lot of these plants back to the greenhouse today. However, during my time at work, I did get to see several people construct collections of plants to take home. It's always inspiring to see the conspiratory glint in people's eyes when they're choosing plants. That kept me upbeat even though it was 37 degrees Fahrenheit and drizzling out.

Pictured here is the sage and the tarragon. My sage isn't nearly this big, but I know it's outside, so perhaps it will be before long.

I took this picture just to show the scale of this sale. This shot encompasses roughly one-fourth of the offerings. We had two whole tables for non-tomato vegetables. A table for tomatoes (and some on the floor and other tables). At least a table and a half for herbs. Two tables and a lot of floor space for ornamentals. You can see some of this and more below.

These, I believe, are some of the tomatoes and peppers.

These are the big tomatoes. These sold out on the first day of the sale, unsurprisingly.

Here are the other vegetables (like rhubarb, zucchini, squash, cucumbers, and strawberries).

This shot shows some of the ornamental combo planters, the few grasses we had, and more vegetables.

This is all the combo planters, as well as the geraniums. All the pink geraniums sold.

I've never seen an ornamental pepper bearing fruit before. While I'd much rather eat these peppers than merely look at them, they are very pretty. I would recommend them as patio plantings outside a Mexican or Thai restaurant.

Ah, one of the members of my to-get list. Dichondra 'Silver Falls.' In the far right of the picture, you can also see Dichondra 'Emerald Falls.' I'll leave it to you to decipher these names.

These are amaranth plants (Amaranthus 'Velvet Curtains,' I think). Amaranth can be grown for aesthetics, their leaves (used like any other leafy green), their grains (popular in ancient Mexico), or their pigments (used by Native Americans as a red dye). I transplanted these, so I feel like I've watched them grow up. If I had a garden, I definitely would have bought at least one of these.

That's all the documentation I have for the plant sale, but enjoy this flower.

What plants would you try to grow if circumstances were just slightly different? What plants are you trying within your circumstances?

Next post: state park adventures!