Growing Strawberries!

I'm attempting to grow strawberries!  Yup!  I am not a gardener, by any means.  In fact, my husband likes to joke and say I have a black thumb.  Up until now, the only thing I have managed to keep alive are aloe plants.  And that's mostly because they're a very hardy plant and it is difficult to kill them....  you can forget to water them for quite some time and they'll be golden.  You just shouldn't OVER water them.  Anyway...  Back in April, I believe, I saw some organic seedlings available at a local plant conservatory/butterfly garden.  I decided I'd give them a shot, I mean, I've been growing my aloes for years now and my herbs for....well, a handful of months. HAHA!

I happily brought my little baby plant home and put her (yes, these are girls... they just feel like they should be girls) into some soil placed in a coconut fiber hanging basket. She has been doing VERY well!  She has grown so much larger than her original size.  For that reason, I decided I'd test my luck and get a second one.   So far, so good!  They've both been producing berries and growing like crazy.  I have had one small set back, but nothing major.  My first plant has started showing signs of blight on the leaves.  Only a couple have shown the disease, but I've pulled them off and will be keeping a watch.  I think I may need to spray them with a baking soda mix. 

Let me mention, too, that plant #1 is a Quinault and plant #2 is an Ozark Beauty.  They are both everbearing strawberry plants.  So, the berries are smaller, but they'll produce their fruit for longer.

The photo just above and just below are what my plants look like as of today.  I have wrapped the baskets in some bird netting because I have a lot of flying friends that come into my yard and I don't want them snacking on my fruits. They didn't have a chance to snag any but I wanted to be sure I protected the plants before they did!   I prefer the looks of the plants without the netting, but I've had to trade off the visuals for practicality. 

I thought I'd mention, too, that most of the white specks you see are crushed eggshells to provide calcium to the plants.  I've also tossed in some coffee grounds a time or two.  I tried to blitz up the eggshell into a powder, but my Ninja was only able to get a portion of it to a complete powder.  

The above photo is my first little plant when I first planted it and then, to compare, currently. She sure has sprouted and grown, huh?  She seems very happy in her home. 

My next project (I think) is going to be putting in a small patio garden to grow some veggies.  We'll see....  if I'm going to do it, I need to get it together in the next couple of weeks in order to actually harvest anything before the end of the growing season.