Thanks for all the answers ! Hope you don't mind a "few" more questions to clarify things for me ;): (a)Did some more reading and as written here and from what I've read elsewhere, people are using a variety of mulches from synthetics, to pine needles/hay/grass clippings and no mulch. I would somehow prefer either the organics or no mulch. Would grass clippings dried for a few days or no mulch really work ? (b)One of my problems in the past was that something always ate the strawberry fruit before I got to them - I always found ants around/in the half eaten fruit, so I thought it was them, but guess it could be slugs/snails or small lizards /guessing). Any ideas on a solution (snails I can do a flashlight search) - but ants and lizards ? (c)I saw varying info on yield per plant - just wondering how many plants I should keep (have around 60 plants of various age growing all over the place) . (d)As far as I understand, 3 years is the time to aim for growing them in the one spot. So I need to plan the rotation spot and would like to know what can be grown there now (it'll be along another fence between grapevines/kiwis or between the mandarins - so I could keep it empty but with little room for growing things, it seems like a waste to leave it empty. How far away from the present planting area should it be (the row of mandarins is parallel and only a couple of meters away from the fence (e)As far as I understand strawberries should be renewed every three years and I've read that a good practice is to renew 1/3 of the plants yearly. Is there a particular order to have them planted so that new runners replace the old plants or do you plant the runners in pots ? How do you tell a plant is "too old" - I've read that the plants have multiple crowns matted together - do you only leave the single crown plants ?. (f)Other than de-flowering plants that are young to force growth of plant instead of fruit - is partial de-flowering practiced to get bigger fruit ?

Zone 4b Canada (USDA 3b). Himrod, Candice, Reliance not hardy. Roland, not hardy and does not taste good either compared to alternatives. Swenson white and red, vines ok but hardly any fruit and swenson red does not ripen well. Petite jewel, variable - good crops on vines put under snow, heavy losses above snow in -30C winters (ripen early-mid sept). Concord - variable. Bit worse than Trollhaugen but tastes so good and negligible disease and japanese beetles do not like as much. Trolhaugen but better than Petiete jewel but still - variable. Some crops even at -30C but vines below snow MUCH happier - ripen beginning Sept. Prarie Star and Brianna - both bomb proof. Like the taste for fresh eating of Prarie Star better - bit more tropical fruit/pineapple than Brianna which is a bit more vegital (Both ripen mid to late sept). Prarie star probably 2nd favorite of japanese beetles after Somerset. Bluebell - Bombproof. Concord/Coronation type flavour. Very thick skins when very ripe. Seems to get get brown rot fairly easy. Big berries on nice clusters though so worth it. Somerset - 5* and bombproof. Amazing taste. 100% hardy. Downsides are small grapes on small clusters and leaves are devistated by japanese beetles but crazy amazing strawberry flavour in a home grown seedless grape means it is a must plant. Ripens end august and holds well on vine for 3+ weeks getting sweeter and sweeter before starting to shrivel. Imagine would be great for farmers markets and CSA due to long harvest time. Valient - Bombproof but why plant if you have alternatives. Small grapes that are 50% seed. No good for fresh eating (too tart for my taste buds). If you canèt grow anything else, ok. If you really want for jelly, ok. Otherwise i would try some of the above.

I've always been unsuccessful in getting my orioles to eat oranges...I've sacrificed a lot of nice navels in the process. I've seen it done with great results elsewhere. However, this year I added a small bowl of grape jelly to the stump I usually stick the oranges on...and the orioles immediately began gobbling it up. They also like sugar water, either from a specific oriole feeder or a modified hummingbird feeder.

I also have that feeder... $10 at a local garden shop last year. A couple of things about the feeder: - The color fades if you hang it in the sun all summer. Mine is still orange, but paler than it was. There is a clear difference between the underside and the sun-exposed top side. - I never saw an oriole use the perches. To eat the orange they will hang from the metal rod. Post-migration, when they stopped eating orange and instead preferred grape jelly, they would still cling to the metal rod and stretch down to eat the jelly from the trays. I never saw an oriole drink nectar, but I was a few weeks late getting this feeder up and it's possible they just no longer wanted nectar by that time. I would like to see orioles using the perches, so I'm considering putting an orange slice over each nectar hole and holding them in place by sticking something(stick/nail) down into the holes. - We had never seen orioles before, and I wasn't really expecting to see any when I put the feeder out, but within a couple days there were two of them out there eating the orange. This year I am going to get the feeder out sooner and I also have a vibrant orange bucket sitting in the garage that I'm going to throw over a fence board. Between the feeder and bucket I'm hoping any orioles flying over the area will drop in for a closer look.