Strawberries - Sweet & Juicy

My strawberry plants are producing well this year.  I guess having the three raised beds fully weeded, for once, at the start of the growing season helped.

 

I pick the ripe berries daily. It is a back-breaking task, but the result is well worth my personal pain. We, Glenn and I, can just about eat these juicy and sweet strawberries as fast as I can pick them.  I do try to skim a quart off occasionally to freeze for a future time.  Yummy strawberry treats in the cold of December…pure decadence.

 

 

I use to make a mean strawberry shortcake, but of late, we have decided to forgo the cake (Why fill up the stomach space on flour?) for an extra helping of fresh fruit slathered in cream.   After all, you got to eat these beauties when they are just ripe - not hard, not white and not soft…perfectly firm and juicy. This freshness does not last long once I pluck the strawberries from their vines.  We have to enjoy posthaste.

 

I am so glad that we have an abundant strawberry crop as every one of our sweet cherries was devoured by our resident birds.  Not one of my cherries passed through my lips for a second year in a row.  So disappointing!

 

The birds have not discovered the strawberries and I do plan to keep them a secret.  Fortunately, the berries have an uncanny ability to hide among their green leaves.  As carefully as I pick, I go back a second time and still find ripe berries that I had overlooked on my first pass…incredible.

 

It is amazing to me how this ‘real red’ fruit can hide, but hide it does - thank goodness.

 

I do not feel like I need to share all my harvest with my feathered friends.  The cherries are enough of a sacrifice on my part.

 

Though, next year, I do plan to place a scarecrow in the orchard.  I want some of those sweet cherries, too!


Now... I am off for another bowlful of berries and cream - yummy!