Dying For Strawberries

With seasonal crowds flocking to its sandy beaches, lively downtown shops, and the Berry Basket, a berry emporium with something for everyone, the lakeshore village of Oriole Point is ripe for summer fun—and murder. Much has changed for Marlee Jacob since she returned to Oriole Point, Michigan, three years ago. Between running the Berry Basket, dodging local gossip, and whipping up strawberry muffins, smoothies, and margaritas to celebrate the town’s first annual Strawberry Moon Bash, the twenty-nine-year-old hardly has time for her fiancé, let alone grim memories of her old life in New York . . . But unfortunately for Marlee, Oriole Point is muddled with secrets of its own. First her friend Natasha disappears after an ominous dream. Next the seediest man in town threatens to crush her business. Then an unknown person nearly kills her on the night of the Bash. When she discovers a dead body while searching for Natasha, Marlee realizes she’ll have to foil a killer’s plot herself—before the past permanently stains her future. Strawberry picking at its finest. Dying for Strawberries has it all. Delicious small town ambience, tasty cast of characters, and a plot so satisfying you'll want to return for another serving of the Berry Basket Mysteries.” —Gail Oust, author of the Spice Shop Mysteries “Whoever said small town life is dull never visited Oriole Point, Michigan! Marlee Jacob has enough humor and pluck to keep her lakeside town happily complicated for years to come.” —Laurie Cass, author of the Cat Bookmobile Mystery series “Sharon Farrow whips up the perfect recipe for a great cozy. Dying for Strawberries boasts a charming setting, a feisty heroine, and a smart mystery. What a treat!” —Cindy Brown, Agatha-nominated author of the Ivy Meadows mysteries.

A scorned wife. A greedy lover. A bitter business partner. Chester Atkins was a terrible person. It's no surprise he wound up dead. But who killed him? The list of suspects is long, but small town coffee shop owner Liana Campbell is determined to narrow it down. The amateur sleuth sets out to solve the case, but runs into some distractions along the way. For instance, her overbearing mother is determined to find her a boyfriend. And she isn't subtle about it. Will Liana emerge with her dignity intact? Will she find out who killed Chester? Will her cat ever successfully catch his tail? Read the book to find out!

"The reading experience of a lifetime ..."--The Washington Post The National Book Award winner takes readers inside the epic fighting retreat of the Nez Perce Indians In this new installment in his acclaimed series of novels examining the collisions between Native Americans and European colonizers, William T. Vollmann tells the story of the Nez Perce War, with flashbacks to the Civil War. Defrauded and intimidated at every turn, the Nez Perces finally went on the warpath in 1877, subjecting the U.S. Army to its greatest defeat since Little Big Horn as they fled from northeast Oregon across Montana to the Canadian border. Vollmann’s main character is not the legendary Chief Joseph, but his pursuer, General Oliver Otis Howard, the brave, shy, tormented, devoutly Christian Civil War veteran. In this novel, we see him as commander, father, son, husband, friend, and killer. Teeming with many vivid characters on both sides of the conflict, and written in an original style in which the printed page works as a stage with multiple layers of foreground and background, The Dying Grass is another mesmerizing achievement from one of the most ambitious writers of our time.

Fifteen years ago, the innocence of the small town of Pleasure, Wisconsin was stolen by a young boy. Now, he is back, leaving a trail of bloody carnage in his wake. The media has dubbed him Strawberries, and the country is mesmerized. Detective Harry Bland is a broken man, and can't find a single clue to catch him. It doesn't help that his mind won't focus; his heart just isn't in it anymore. Halfway across the country, Sylvia is in a different state of mind. When she isn't selling sex to the rich, she is doing her best to disappear. Sylvia lives a life of assumed names, one night stands and a constant stream of narcotics. A reporter, two cross-country truckers, an eccentric friend and a rubber-clad CSI all have their part to play, as their paths come together in a small town you've never heard of. Strawberries has killed again.

In Elle B. White's delightful second Finn Family Farm mystery, farmer Charlotte Finn and her sleuthing baby pig are neck-deep in strawberries and crime. Things are finally growing smoothly on the Finn Family Farm. With the help of caretakers Joe and Alice Wong and farmer Samuel Brown, Charlotte Finn is starting to feel at home at the Santa Barbara County produce farm she inherited. But all is not strawberries and cream: A blight is destroying young berry plants. Worse, another mysterious death is shaking Little Acorn. The victim is grizzled, cantankerous Linc Pierce, the only farmer in Little Acorn whose strawberry crop was fruitful. Charlotte and her old friend Beau Mason find him hanging from the rafter, an apparent suicide. But a cursory search turns up a half-eaten sandwich. Who eats before he kills himself? Chief Goodacre suspects foul play. Her prime suspect is Beau, who exchanged words--and worse--with Linc earlier in the day. Meanwhile, Little Acorn's farmers point accusing fingers at one another, recalling Linc's suggestion that someone sabotaged their strawberries. As Charlotte searches for clues to exonerate Beau, she finds something on Linc's workbench not buried in dust. Could this be why Linc's strawberry plants are alive? And, perhaps, why Linc is dead? Now, if Charlotte and Horse--the farm's baby pig with a bottomless stomach and an insatiable hunger for sleuthing--can't root out the murderer, they, too, may end up dead and berried.

Table of Contents Introduction Planting Strawberries Straw and Sedge Peat Mulch Selecting the Right Plants Feeding Your Plants Protecting Your Strawberries Strawberry Pests and Diseases Aphids – Fungi and Viruses – Soil pests – Popular Strawberry Varieties Remontant Strawberries Climbing Strawberries – Innovative Ways of Growing Strawberries Polythene Covered Frames Traditional Gardening Soil Mix The Best Organic Fertilizer/Compost Base Conclusion Author Bio Publisher Introduction Nobody knows when the attractive Woodland plant known to the world as strawberries decided to leave the edges of the wood lands and invade the gardens of human beings. But one is grateful that this is one plant which was allowed to grow and flourish in the gardens, instead of being considered to be just another weed, which had this habit of taking over large coppices, which were rich in natural humus. This very popular fruit, cultivated globally is now known as the garden or just a strawberry. It belongs to the Fragaria genus of plants, which is made up of other fruits which are not berries, but are a number of aggregate fruits. Thanks to its very attractive red and bright color, strawberry aroma, sweetness and juicy flavor, is it a surprise that there is no fruit like the strawberry for adding style and distinction to your garden patch. Just imagine ice creams, fruit juice, milkshakes, chocolates and pies, which have not been flavored with the delicate flavor of a strawberry. In fact artificially produced strawberry flavors are used extensively in lip glosses, lip balms and other beauty products. Strawberries, especially the Woodland strawberries are supposed to have originated in Europe, because references to these sweet delicious berries have been found in ancient Roman classical cuisine. They were also used by the Romans to cure a number of ailments related to the skin. Crushed strawberries were placed under ashes and skin problems in order to clear and cure the skin ailment and to make it smooth and glowing again. The plant was also used to treat depression. Strawberry growers of the early Victorian days used to take a great delight in digging up large coppices in the wood lands. These lands were rich in natural fertilizer, especially organic fertilizer, humus, and a well fertilized soil too. These lands were then allowed to be overrun with strawberries. When people got to know in the medieval ages that all you had to do was go into the woods, cut some strawberry runners and plant them in your plot of land, and they would grow and bear fruit, this fruit began to be more and more popular both with gardeners and with farmers.

Combining graphic pictures with simple novelty devices, this book reveals that strawberries are red, oranges are orange, bananas are yellow and so on. Each page has more cut off it than the one before, so that the layered images finally form a delicious-looking surprise.

"This volume is but a collection of Notes, which, at the request of the editor, I wrote, month by month, in 1874, for the columns of the Gardeners' Chronicles. They pretend to little technical knowledge and are, I fear, of but little horticultural value. They contain only some slight record of a year's work in a garden, and of those associations which a garden is so certain to call up ..."--Preface