The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Small Home Landscaping

STRAWBERRIES—A strawberry bed is good for about two years. It is then dug up and re-planted. Usually the runners (young plants growing from the older plants) are saved for setting out a new bed in spring or fall. Plants are set in rows two feet apart, plants fifteen to eighteen inches apart and runners removed as they form.

There are two kinds of strawberries, the regular June-bearing and the everbearing. Some varieties of the latter form few runners. It is advisable to remove the first blossoms in spring, but to allow the second crop, which appears in July, to mature into fruit for late summer and fall.

Good varieties are numerous. As suggested in the case of tree fruits, it is best to obtain those which are suited to your region. The following have given good crops over a wide territory and are high-quality, June-bearing varieties—Maytime, Midland, Fairpeake, Red Star and Howard (Premier). These ripen in the order given. The last-named variety is good for light soils. Catskill is a better variety for heavy soils. Everbearing varieties you can try include Mastodon, Gem, Green Mountain and Wayzata.

GRAPES—They are useful as a screen or for covering an arbor or fence. The canes of a grape vine grow fast, ten to fifteen feet in a season. For an arbor, set them four to six feet apart. For growing on a trellis or fence set them ten to twelve feet apart. There are several kinds of grapes. One is grown on the Pacific coast, another in the South and yet another in the northern regions. Within these are numerous varieties classified as table or wine grapes. These again differ in their degree of hardiness and their adaptability to soil and climate. Choose only those which your experiment station recommends for your locality.

All have one thing in common—their habit of fruiting. The only part of a grape vine that produces grapes is the long, brownish canes produced the year before. In spring, these are cut back, leaving a section six inches to a foot long, having three to five buds. These are the buds which produce the grapes.