If you are planting strawberries from seed the first year, you are supposed to pick the flowers off until July 1st so the roots can grow and you will get a bigger crop. You are also supposed to get rid of 1/3 of your crop keeping only 1/3 of your runners, next year do the same of your older plants replacing 1/3 of them, etc., each year keeping your strawberry plants at between 2 and 3 years old at all times. Always move them to a different location because of bugs each year, cut them back to 1 inch tall in fall and move to their new location. This is from books and internet and most say the same, but that is for everbearing strawberries. If you have June bearers, you never cut your runners because that is where your crop comes from. Do you know what kind of strawberry you have? It will help, there are 3 kinds, everbearing, june bearing, and another I can't remember similar to everbearing. I thought when you bought plants, they were on their second year? I might be wrong, but you can ask your nursery where you bought them how old they are. And speaking only from books, the cucumbers do not like wind either, they call them ridge cucumbers because you usually plant them in a ridge, a few inches deep in the row, this gives them a sunken bed and protection from wind. I can't say from experience this is true, and my cucumbers did better as ground cover producing much more than the year before, but location is probably the reason why too. I changed them to a different row the next year and on the ground you can say they may have sprouted more roots making more plants.

looks like some type of chard maybe?

Your cabbage and artichoke plants look positively wonderful, Xuan! They must love the humidity! I can hardly believe the cabbage is forming heads already! My veggie seeds, besides the radishes, haven't even made an appearance yet! We've gotten plenty of rain, but the raised beds dry out faster than the ground, what with all the wind we've gotten lately... they needed to be watered yesterday, for the first time this season. Due to the different soil types in different garden areas, some beds are still a bit muddy while others are beginning to dry out a bit... we have heavy clay soil in some areas, and others have been amended with compost, peat, topsoil and sand. A few areas are rather gravelly, as well, and I'm constantly picking out small stones and pebbles. The other raised beds by the barn were filled with a combination of topsoil and rotted horse manure... by next year, that soil should have broken down even more and become quite beautiful! I should still add some sand to the beds... maybe some peat, too. When I hear about overly dry conditions and wildfires raging, it's usually in California... I normally think of Florida as being humid and wet! It must be difficult to find edibles to grow that can take both wet and dry extremes... Mulberries sound delicious! When I was a kid, we had a good sized mulberry tree in our yard... we would pick tons of berries and enjoy them with cereal in the mornings! I've got Tithonia "Torch" seeds planted... I can't wait to see the flowers! Your bouquets of them always look so pretty, Cindee! And you're so right... fresh picked home grown fruits and vegetables taste so much better than anything you can buy at the larger grocery stores... most of the commercially grown food, unless it's organic, is rather tasteless! Especially the tomatoes! I look forward every year to harvesting fresh pea pods and green beans, tomatoes and bell peppers, and all the other delicious things we plant! This year, Larry is going to make pickles! Yummy!

I've been experimenting with lasagna gardens this year and have some success...and some almost failures. The tomatoes are huge..but mostly greenery and the fruit is wrinkled so I guess I should have watered more even though the lasagna stayed moist. Picked the first ripe ones yesterday. The acorn squash have taken over the bed and are climbing the fence now and are setting squash. I planted a row of corn in a brand new lasagna bed and it is doing well. It was nothing but grass clippings and shredded paper with a small amount of compost. I thought it would get a foot high and then keel over. Not so, it just keeps growing and even though I planted late, is starting to tassle. Another last minute bed is woodchips and grass clippings (obviously the grass is growing this cool summer) with only enough compost to plant seeds in. Last week, I seeded this one with parsnip seeds and last night it looked like every one had germinated! This in my experience is very unusual. They usually take ages to germinate and then are spotty. There are so many coming up I thought they were weeds! Meanwhile the beans are producing well and one of the best veggies this year has been the peas. With all of the cool weather they are still producing. It's been quite fun trying this type of gardening.