summer's first strawberries

The little strawberry patch has been thriving at our new place, and the first berries ripened over the weekend. We picked nine strawberries and found them to be so precious a treasure that we ate them right away, savoring them to the last juicy bite. There might have been a couple more berries, but, alas, it looks like we had to share them with birds and other creatures. This is definitely one drawback to pesticide-free, organic gardening, but it's a price we're willing to pay for what we get out of it.

We'll have more strawberries ripening soon, and I can't help but remember how impatient I was last year when we put this patch in, picking off the blooms that first year and urging the plant to hurry up and grow! And now I think this was so worth waiting for. Look at how gorgeous our berries are!

I've been amazed over the years at how easy it is to grow and care for strawberries, and how sustainable a crop it is since it expands and produces more all on its own. You won't get a yield the first year, but the following year you will have several berries and be amazed! We started our patch with five June-bearing plants last year, deliberately picking a mix of two different varieties that do well in the state of Washington, and now we're seeing pretty decent results, with having put in very little weeding or maintenance the past year. At only 2 feet by 8 feet, this a small strawberry patch by most standards, in a sunny but otherwise unused spot along the side of the house. It will yield enough for us to enjoy in-season, but not enough to can or freeze or do anything. So we're starting to scout out a little more space in unused corners of our yard, to put in a new patch, and hopefully, double our yield in two years. Maybe then we will have enough to make jam, and freeze for our smoothies, desserts, and whatever else we do to enjoy these babies through the rest of the and until the following June when we will see them again. This is too precious, too sustainable, and too easy a fruit to grow to ignore its potential!