Are Your Strawberries Cancer-Free?

Since most of the strawberries sold here in Nevada... (4.00 / 3)

Are from next door, I hope Cali doesn't mind us adding our $0.02. I'd rather not see people get sick from eating their recommended daily servings of fruit and veggies.

Act on Principles and make equality happen.

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by: atdleft @ Sun Mar 21, 2010 at 03:09:06 AM UTC

What is it about strawberries that requires all the pesticides/fungicides? (4.00 / 5)

Is it just the nature of the plant, have commercial cultivars been bred for production as opposed to disease resistance? This is something that can happen in plant agriculture as well as animal ag.

I was thinking about putting in some strawberries, but am somewhat hesitant to do so because of all the pests/diseases I've heard the plants are susceptable to. Then there's the chicken issue. If those squirely white chickens discover strawberries and decide they like them, I'll either have to lock them up or lock the hens up.

That's one of the amazing thing about those white leghorns. If they find something they really, really want, they will move heaven and earth to get to it. The can be incredibly focuse and tennatious.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Sun Mar 21, 2010 at 08:29:48 AM UTC

Our chickens like the leaves, too. (4.00 / 3)

We keep them locked out with a six-foot fence around the garden.

I tore up our three year-old little plot of Seascape strawberries last summer. It was after it's third season. On the third season the plants turned into more of a June bearer and the berries were small, though the best-tasting of all years.

We didn't have any trouble with the plants except for slugs eating on the berries. I wouldn't be surprised if the greatest problem with those strawberry growers is their reliance on monocropping the same damn strawberries in the same damn plot year after year.

Anyway, we forgo supermarket strawberries regardless because of the crap they put on them they simply aren't ripe.

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by: Crider @ Sun Mar 21, 2010 at 15:33:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I hear ya on the ripeness issue (4.00 / 4)

I grew up going out in the spring with dad and my younger brother and picking in the U-Pick fields. Strawberries in the store out of season just can't compare with competely ripe straight out of the field.

At least now if a person does U-Pick, you can ask the farm how they're growing or just pick from an organic farm.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Sun Mar 21, 2010 at 16:54:27 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

agreed (4.00 / 2)

strawberries from the store are entirely skip-able. Strawberries fresh from the field (and ripe!) are among my favorite fruits and definitely my favorite berry.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 00:26:41 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

favorite berry (4.00 / 1)

Although I love love love huckleberries, My Favorite Berry is the humble raspberry.

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by: count @ Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 01:05:19 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

more of my ag ignorance (4.00 / 2)

I wonder if commercial growers treat strawberry plants as an annual crop.

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by: count @ Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 00:55:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

yes (4.00 / 2)

there's a really sickening quote about strawberry production in Schlosser's book Reefer Madness and I quoted the entire thing in my own book because it stuck with me so much. The plants are thrown out each year along with LOTS of plastic.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 06:20:25 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

you'd do fine (4.00 / 2)

the problem's the monoculture. Huge fields of nothing but strawberries year after year. And it's also the thin margins. A little bit of damage is enough to totally sink a grower from what I'm hearing, so they go to great lengths to protect what they've got. Except they are going about it in stupid ways (i.e. pesticides) if you ask me. You never win a fight against nature. The farm I visited was experimenting with ecological methods but it seemed like some of the experiments were too shortlived to really bear results. If they start to do something pesticide-free (like use predatory mites to control spider mites) and it doesn't work immediately, it looks like they give up. But it takes several years to build up biodiversity, so trying something once and failing doesn't mean that it doesn't work. It means that your first year off the chemicals is REALLY hard and the methods you're trying might or might not work long term.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 00:25:24 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I've got a friend who grew them in barrels (4.00 / 3)

the big blue plastic barrels, he cut holes in them so the plants grew in what ammounted to a 50 gallon strawberry planter (like the small ceramic ones you see at the garden centers). I think that might work out here, at least it'd make getting to the berries harder for the land sharks....

It might also make it harder for some instect pests to get to the berries if the plants were up off the ground.

I might give that a try. I've got a couple of food grade barrels out here.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 00:38:31 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

harder for the land sharks (4.00 / 2)

and a little easier for the farmer to get to the berries?

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by: count @ Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 00:56:49 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Anything off the ground works for me! (4.00 / 3)

I grew currant tomatoes last year. One of my favorites by far. Sweet, tart, super small (hence the 'currant' in the common name), but a pain in the ass to pick.

This year I'm growing them (both red and yellow) in hanging buckets. That way I'll either be picking without bending over (Oh, less than two feet off the ground? Ya gotta be kidding me!!!), or I'll pull the buckets off the racks, set those puppies on a lazy suzy on a work bench, and be sitting down and picking at shoulder level while spinning the container and plant around and around....

Now that's my idea of a sit down job!

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 01:30:06 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

hanging baskets (4.00 / 1)

Do the tomato plants grown down from the baskets? That would seem convenient, if it's practical. And from what I've read, if a plant needs to put less energy into growing the support structure (stems or vines), more energy can go to fruit.

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by: count @ Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 02:40:09 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

With tomatoes (4.00 / 2)

there needs to be a balance between fruit weight and ammount. Some people grow upside down tomatoes. Romas work well for those and one of my CSA subscribers actually grows their roma tomatoes that way. Works great. The fruit is heavy enough to pull the plant and train it to grow upside down. Most plants are very sensitive to gravity, and will do their absolute best to orient themselves so that they grow from down-up not up-down.

I took a floral design course once a long time ago and we were cautioned that some stems of flowers like Gladiolas, which are used for line material in arrangements, will turn if placed in any orientation other than straight up and down. So if you're using glads in a fan shape or any other orientation like that, do the arrangement the day of, not the day before, or they'll all have ends that have turned up.

Anyway, getting back to the tomatoes, if the fruit is too heavy, as in a beef steak or ox heart tomato, the plant will break off. If the fruit is too light weight, as is the case with the currant tomatoes, then you can plant in the sides or bottom of a bucket and the plant will just turn and grow up anyway.

The currant tomatoes are one of the prettiest plants I've worked with so far. They are incredibley bushy, and have the most delicate of foliage. They're just a beautiful little plant, and incredibly prolific and early bearing. In addition to being the first to produce last year, they were the last to quit. I started seed on the first week of April last year and I picked my first yellow currant tomatoes the second week of July. The other varieties were seeded at the same time, but I couldn't pick until the end of July through the middle of August. Currant tomatoes are phenominal little plants. They're in the same family as the other tomatoes, but strictly speaking they're another related species or a subspecies, I forget which. They are also pretty resistant to blight.

All that having been said, they are an absolute pain in the arse to pick if planted in the ground. They're only a couple feet high, and spread like crazy. Picking the fruit is stoop work pure and simple and by the time you've picked several plants your back will be screaming.

This year I'm going to set up my scaffold frames and plant the tomatoes in 3 gal and 5 gal buckets, that I'll hang from planks on said scaffold. The cross braces I have for the scaffold are long, 10' or 12'. I should be able to do two tiers of plants. In addition to the currant tomatoes I'm going to do the other small tomatoes that way - grape, pear and cherry tomatoes.

The plan is to be able to lift the bucket off it's hanger and place the bucket on a lazy susan which will be on a work bench. That way I'll be able to sit down and pick in comfort. It'll also keep the plants off the ground and away from pests.

Should look pretty too. The scaffold is pretty old, and rusty, with the buckets and the delicate foliage of the tomato plants I think it'll look pretty cool.

Normal people scare me.... But not as much as I scare them.

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by: JoanneRigutto @ Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 11:52:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Amen. (4.00 / 2)

first year off the chemicals is REALLY hard

I don't remember where I read this (or heard it), but sterile soil supposedly takes something like three years to begin to come back to life.

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by: count @ Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 01:02:27 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I've heard it takes 5 (4.00 / 2)

to really hit its peak.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 06:21:16 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Farmers market strawberries are the best (4.00 / 3)

We grow some strawberries in old laundry tubs, but we never get very many. Not sure what we are doing wrong.

Mostly I buy strawberries in the farmers market from a nice Hispanic family. They have wonderful strawberries.

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by: la motocycliste @ Sun Mar 21, 2010 at 21:04:49 PM UTC

The berries are so small (4.00 / 2)

I think it just takes a lot of plants (and thus a lot of space) to get a lot of berries.

"I can understand someone from Iowa promoting corn and soy, but we are not feeding the world, we are feeding animals and soft drink companies." - Jim Goodman

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by: Jill Richardson @ Mon Mar 22, 2010 at 00:25:57 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Strawberries and city people (4.00 / 1)

Okay, yes, I take your point on the pesticides, damage to the environment, danger to workers, etc. etc. etc.  But I'm an urban person, who lives in condo building in the sky with basically no interest in gardening. There are precious few (if any) strawberry farms in central Wisconsin and I've never seen any berries in the market here advertised as 'locally grown.' So in the interest of saving the planet, no more strawberries ever?

Is there any middle way? Do I have to move back to California in order for me to eat strawberries guilt free again? What if I found some from, say, Michigan? Or Iowa?

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by: JPStreeter @ Tue Mar 23, 2010 at 02:07:26 AM UTC

Well... (4.00 / 1)

...I'm a city person (Portland, Oregon) myself, and I never have any problem finding locally grown strawberries between May and October or so.  I haven't eaten a California strawberry (or a Florida winter tomato, etc...) in years, and I don't feel like I'm missing anything myself.

I don't personally know much about Wisconsin, but I know for sure that local strawberries are available in Detroit and East Lansing and Ann Arbor for at least 3 months right next door during Michigan's summer.

Check out Local Harvest for growers near you.

"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks." - Christopher Hitchens

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by: JayinPortland @ Tue Mar 23, 2010 at 02:39:18 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Strawberries and city people (4.00 / 1)

Thanks for the link. Turns out I'm wrong -- there are strawberry farms locally. Since I don't drive and I don't eat enough to subscribe to a CSA (tried that and it was way too much -- even for a veggie lover like me!), I'm going to have to contact some of these farms to find out if they are selling to any local markets. Thanks for the tip!!

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by: JPStreeter @ Tue Mar 23, 2010 at 14:33:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

CSA (4.00 / 1)

Are you able to try combining with someone else so you can get a half share or perhaps even a quarter share?

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by: count @ Tue Mar 23, 2010 at 19:39:49 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Mexican strawberries (4.00 / 2)

A Nice Person in my office bought two boxes of strawberries to share- grown in Mexico. I washed them off with hot water, but are they even safe to eat?  

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by: la motocycliste @ Wed Mar 24, 2010 at 17:11:11 PM UTC