I grew strawberries for many years, and learned this along the way. If you mulch strawberries with red or white pine needles--the long ones, it makes the strawberries sweeter. It protects them from drying out in warm weather and protects the roots in cold. It keeps the berries off the ground and prevents them from rotting. Keeping in the moisture makes the berries juicy too. My neighbor had pine trees and was only too happy to have me clean up the fallen needles from under his tree. I put a 3 or 4 inch layer of needles and moved them away a little so the stringers could set down roots when the started to come. Yellow leaves are usually a sign of too much or too little water or too little fertilizer

Thanks for the great recipes! We planted heirloom zucchini seeds this year and they are coming in strong. We will have tons in no time. I so glad to be able to add some recipes to bag of tricks. I have a great recipe for zucchini bread. I have tried many zucchini bread recipes in the past and this is the very best bread! It is very moist. I'm sure you will love it! Zucchini Bread 1 c zucchini 3/4 c nuts (optional) 1 c any dried fruit (optional) 1 1/4 c flour 3/4 c sugar 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp nutmeg 2 eggs 1/2 c melted butter 1/2 c vanilla yogurt 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp citrus zest Pre heat oven to 350â¢. Grate zucchini, dry and set aside in small bowl. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg in large bowl and set aside. In medium bowl whisk eggs, melted butter, yogurt, vanilla and zest. Fold into bowl of dry ingredients. Mix well. Add zucchini, nuts and dried fruit. Place in prepared 9X5 pan. This recipe can be easily double. Enjoy! ~Tina~

Lasagna is more about a method than a recipe. All of your ingredients sound good except for one thing: Moisture. You have lots of moisture and nothing to sop it up with--or, that is, I took this to mean that you want to use zucchini instead of pasta. The pasta is what soaks up the excess moisture, as well as the ricotta (if you use it well drained). Why does it have to have sour cream? Just because you have it? I think your ingredients sound fine except for the sour cream. The dish is light on protein if you don't use the meat. You could try draining the sour cream, or even adding some heat and acid to separate it from from the whey, but you don't need it to make lasagna. Okay, this might work if you really want to use the sour cream. Instead of making a tomato sauce, per se, use it to make a cream tomato sauce. Use your thicker canned tomato products, like some whole or diced tomatoes, drained, and some tomato paste. Recipe-ish: Slice the zucchini thin, lightly oil with cooking oil, and lightly season. Lay on baking sheets lined with parchment paper and roast or broil at 375-400° (depending on your oven) until well dry and just starting to get dark edges. Set the sour cream out on the counter to warm up some. Sauté a couple diced onions (or a giant one like they had at my store the other day), a diced red pepper or two, and 6 large cloves of garlic to a whole head, pressed or minced, depending on your preference as to quantity. Add any of the other vegetables you mentioned, cut to the same size as your onions and pepper--or steam them separately, and mix with dried herbs to use instead of meat. Be generous with the oil, which will help the viscosity of the sauce. Add chopped or dried Italian herbs: a spoon or two of oregano, thyme, basil, parsley, etc., plus some black pepper and, if you like a little heat, crushed red pepper. Stir in a can or two of tomato paste until you have a very stiff chunky sauce. Add the solids from your diced or whole canned tomatoes. Add salt to taste, but there may be plenty in the cans. Remove from heat. When the sauce has cooled down to no more than slightly warm, stir in the sour cream. Beat in an egg or two. Do you have any more cheese than the half lb. of mozzarella? Some bread crumbs? If you have bread crumbs--if this isn't meant to be a starch free dish--toast them on your baking tray. You're just drying them out. Or, if you have matzah meal or matzah (Cuisinart is great for grinding matzah) you can skip the toasting. The bread crumbs are there to soak up moisture and help with the gluing since there isn't much cheese. If you're making a meat version, brown the ground beef and add seasoning, herbs (try tarragon, for instance) and some tomato paste, or use crushed tomatoes and reduce out the extra water. If you're using the spinach feta chicken sausage, and it's already cooked, tear it up, or else cook it in crumbles. Make a béchamel, including the nutmeg, and stir the sausage into it. The apple sausage isn't a good idea with tomato. Or prepare the broccoli, cauliflower, maybe some carrots, and any other veg you want, as stated above, by steaming and dressing with a little olive oil and plenty of dried herbs. S&P to taste. You can use béchamel instead of the oil, but I'm losing track of whether or not there can be wheat in this dish. The trick is to chop small. Bigger than minced, but small enough not to be chunks that need to be chewed separately. Put a big spoon of sauce, without many chunks in the bottom of the pan and spread it all around, or oil the pan well. Lay out the zucchini slices to cover as much as possible. Spread on the sauce with a soft baking spatula. Sprinkle with bread crumbs, if you're using them, enough cheese to cover but being careful to leave plenty for the layers and a goodly amount for the top. Add a second layer of zucchini and sauce and a layer of your saucy meat, or steamed veg mix, or another layer of the tomato sauce, bread crumbs and cheese. Repeat the first layer and cap with a fourth layer of zucchini, or go straight to the topping, depending on the height of your dish. You can go five or six layers if you have enough zucchini, filling and dish. If you have any sauce left, coat the top layer of zucchini with it. If not, slightly dilute some tomato paste with wine and oil until it's just spreadable and use that. Sprinkle with herbs. Cover liberally with the rest of your cheese. Cover very loosely with foil and bake at 350° for about 35 minutes. Remove the foil and finish baking for another 10-15 minutes until nicely browned and bubbling hot. An alternative would be to make béchamel (besciamella) out of the sour cream. It's possible. I've done it. But it's so so so easy to make it go wrong and have it curdle or split that I don't really recommend it unless you feel very comfortable doing it. That is, it's possible if it's pure cream (ingredients says cream and enzymes). If there are stabilizers or even just added milk solids or something, don't even try. That's traditional lasagna, the besciamella is. Good luck! Buon appetito!

I've done my potatoes-8 pounds' worth of the pioneer woman recipe and stashed them in my slow cooker for easy warm up and transportation, made brownies, have a turkey breast thawing and eggs slow simmering for the deviled eggs. That's my only oops; I already slow simmered 18 eggs last night-and left them at our house when we came down to the weekend place. Oh well, no biggie. I'll make a batch of stuffing tomorrow, roast the turkey breast and make gravy. Then take it all to my dad's house! It's still worlds easier than hosting everyone at our house, plus I can take a nice plate over to our elderly neighbor who just had his cataract surgery today.