Friday, February 24, 2012

Fruit Fun

Growing your own fruits and berries is lots of fun!  Order your plants and benefit Watauga County 4-H

The fruit plant sale order form is available at the Extension office at 971 West King Street, 264-3061 or can be downloaded HERE
Orders are due by Friday, March 30.   The plants will arrive Friday, April 20, 12:00-6:00 and Saturday, April 21, 9:30-12:30

Ways to have fun with fruits and berries:
Grow strawberries in a creative container. The Seascape variety does well in containers
We offer these strawberry varieties:  Seascape and Chandler
Make an edible landscape with blueberry bushes.  Have fun making blueberry pies, pancakes, muffins and more!
We offer Blue Crop, Blue Ray, Jersey, Blue Chip, Duke varieties
Make something crazy in the kitchen.  Invent a recipe, experiment- add raspberries to your salad.  Make a raspberry vinegar.
We offer Caroline and Josephine varieties of raspberries.
Blackberries make great dyes.  Experiment with plant dyes from your garden. 
We offer Chester and Ouachita varieties of blackberries. 
Want to cool down in the summer?  Pop a frozen grape in your mouth.  Or for a wild experiment, make “grape lightning”- pop a grape half in your microwave (adult supervision here please)
We offer Concord and Catawba varieties this year.
Apples connect us with our heritage.   Carve dried apple faces with your extra apples. 
We offer the following heritage varieties:  Virginia Beauty and Yellow Transparent;  Gala is also offered. 
Play with your food.  Food art is lots of fun.  Pears make a great canvas for creating all sort of art.
We have Bartlett and D’Anjou varieties
Explore fruit drying.  Make your own solar food dehydrator.
What is a dried plum called?
Plum varieties:  Damon, Mount Royal
Since we are toting fruits and vegetables, we had to add some vegetables to our plant sale!  Is rhubarb a vegetable?
Explore the medicinal benefits of plants grown in your yard.  Rhubarb has historically been used as a medicinal plant.  Who is credited with bringing Rhubarb to America?
Do any vegetables grow each year without having to be sown?  Rhubarb and asparagus are two perennial vegetables. 
Explore the world with fruits and vegetables- geography, history, cultures, art, science.  Do you know where asparagus was first raised?  Why is asparagus green?  Asparagus would make a fun paintbrush. 
We offer the Hybrid F2 variety.  It does not have a pretty name.  How about renaming it….  The Green Clover Asparagus variety, in honor of 4-H?!
Asparagus does not bear its produce for us right away, so it teaches us patience.   So many fun and tasty things to learn and do in the garden!