we can start with what seems to be the most rational and sustainable use of resources and move on to clear overshoot...the north bed of strawberries is shade hampered in its growth ( this at least my opinion ) and so its colonization of its surroundings has been more measured...i counted twenty stolons and four rooted daughter plants there this morning and no sign of a berry...
the south bed has had significantly more sun up to this point and has been a more productive bed is=n some aspects...here too are twenty stolons...there are also five daughter plants, two of which i have pinned in pots to move elsewhere ( where being the salient question )...the stolons and daughters that have established themselves along the north edge of the bed will, i think, continue to prosper and try to expand...the ones that headed south towards the jerusalem artichokes will be, eventually , shaded out as those plants grow and shade the sunlight...the biggest difference here is the ample sunlight turned the two original plants into prolific bloomers and they both are producing a quantity of berries unmatched anywhere else in the yard...there will be birds here and seeds will be spread...i am not averse to this "wilding" and, hopefully, they will be appreciated wherever they establish themselves...
to this point i have based my assessments of behaviors mostly on exposure to sunlight and it is at this point that it begins to become clear that there are more variables than that at work...the east bed is parked just south of a pair of locust trees...locust trees leaf later in spring than other trees in the yard so, until the past week or so, this bed has had nearly the same exposure to the sun as the south bed...and because it is south of the trees it will continue to receive direct sunlight for at least part of the day...that said the behaviors here are markedly different than either of the other beds..i counted forty-seven stolons radiating from three plants...twelve rooted daughters...three of which are pinned in pots to move to who knows where ( i see the campus garden as a target...in my bed anyway )...there were blooms in this bed but not nearly as many as in the south bed...and there are berries in progress...but not as many and nowhere near as large...so...eighty-seven stolons and eleven plants have produced twenty-one daughters...thirty-two strawberry plants in my yard an no sign of any sort of slowdown...the deepening shade from the trees and the jerusalem artichokes may slow things down..or speed them up..this is a learning process for me...all i can do at the moment is watch and try to find space for the daughters...clearly the east bed plants are rapidly using up the carrying capacity and will have to be controlled if the onions, asparagus ( although the asparagus is so deeply rooted it might not care ), tomato, and volunteer cucumbers are going to stand a chance of having a season...this may become an object lesson in microcosm of larger issues.
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