Manicuring the Pyramids

While Hubby was building the frame I was "manicuring" the strawberry pyramids.
All cleaned up!

The above pyramid is the original, it is filled with nursery plants.

This is my second pyramid. We built it last spring, it is filled with plants that a generous "Freecycle Family" offered. I went to their house, dug them up, transplanting them here. I only allowed one strawberry plant to make fruit last year (that is my habit when establishing a new pyramid) and that fruit was spectacular! As you can see these plants are much more lush with flowers and they had fabulous flavor so, I will be transplanting runners from these to the original pyramid once these plants send them out.

I think the pyramids looked pretty nice at the end of the day. I trimmed the grass/weeds down to the dirt, folded newspaper to put under my tiles then, laid the tiles on top. I hope this will achieve several things making the pyramids more easily maintained. I am hopeful they will block the grass/weeds, keeping them from pushing up, under, through and into my pyramids. The newspaper under the tiles should also keep stuff from growing up between the tiles. I may have to resort to different material to choke out the weed between the tiles, more durable than the newspaper but it seemed like a good place to start. It hope it also makes lawn maintenance easier with less damage to the fruit from string trimmers. I think my weed solution is also pretty easy on the eyes.

All the tiles were extras gathered from Freecyclers in my neighborhood. I am very grateful to all the folks that have provided me with materials for these pyramids I am especially thankful to one particular "Freecycle Family" that provided enough strawberry plants to fill the second pyramid last year! I am hopeful that by next year I will be in a position to provide other local "Freecyclers" with the excess plants I imagine I will have.

Edited 5/09/2008 For specifics regarding the building of the strawberry pyramid see my webpage, http://www.livingcornfree.com/Garden.html. I built the second pyramid a little larger with more surface area. I hope to update the page with those dimensions and a supply list. I prefer my new improved pyramid.