pictured: treplin (where we are) // meadows
we started the day off bright and early - 8am - with a little strawberry picking. because "harvest day" (what's harvested for sale at the saturday market) isn't until friday we needed to pick all the ripe strawberries we could find - because this would become a very delicious marmelade. and finding these ripe berries was no problem at all. until today, i hadn't ever seen a strawberry plant with more than 2 berries at a time - and that was when i was a kid and my mom bought me a plant from the strawberry festival. but these bushes - some of them had 15 ripe berries at a time!
pictured: ripe n' ready strawberry goodness // me and the berries // alex with his harvest // the harvest that will be made into marmelade
unfortunately strawberry season is very short (about 4 weeks here) so it's not really a good business. the other wwoofers told us that the strawberries they had picked last harvest day hardly sold at all - because some cheaper berries were being sold just a few tables down from them at the berlin market. i thought this was so sad - delicious, organic strawberries being sold for what's equivalent to an american $4.50 per pint - and no one buying them! outrageous. and now because the berries are really kicking into high gear, prices are dropping. so this weekend they will probably go for only and american $1.75! what a waste when you realise the time (from seed to fruit and labor) it took to create that little pint.
but it was fun to pick (and eat) the strawberries - who's direct german and swedish translation is earthberry (however these strawberries were going out of a straw covered field - and i noticed they likes to hide under the straw...interesting). and they made our hands really really red (not like those store berries that are all white in the middle).
and then it was break time for lunch and i was given a bunch of vegetables from the garden that i had no idea what they were and was told to make something. it was quite frustrating - cooking without understanding what it is you are cooking with, or how it tastes - but in the end the meal turned out pretty good (i just made a pasta dish and topped it with cheese - cheese makes everything okay).
then we moved on to the "plastic tunnel" where we were pruning some tomato plants. this i learned is done specifically from greenhouse-type tomatoes because space is so precious. pruning certain branches helps direct the plant upward, instead of outward - thus allowing you to fit more plants per square meter. also, we discovered that tomato plants, when touched for hours - turn your hands green. and this ain't any green. it's a metallic, thick, shell of a green. very interesting stuff (and apparently no good for your eyes).
pictured: me with green-fingers - but no green thumb :( // upclose tomato greeness
and after our 6 hours we headed over to the nice looking (albeit not the clearest) lake for a refreshing swim.
pictured: the local lake // a dock that leads to a table
oh, and here's today's extra picture...
it's a lettuce tree! yum!
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