Strawberries

Last spring, I planted 14 strawberry plants in my yard.  They were each one small root and stem.  I let them do their thing all summer, letting the runners go mad.  In the fall, I looked closely at what had progressed: once I separated all the runners that had started growing on their own from the mother plants, I counted my new strawberry patch: 60 plants. I rearranged them all in a row and covered them with straw for the winter.

This year, I have again been letting them do their own thing, tending to the flowering ones and trimming the runners somewhat.  Some plants did not survive the winter, but many others sprung up in their place. Everyday for the past week, the boys and I have checked the patch to pick the ripe berries.  Most days we get about 6-10 ripe berries.  Yesterday, we got this:

[caption id="attachment_635" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Nothing better than home-grown berries"][/caption]

So we washed them up and sliced them for the boys at supper time.  Red smiles for everyone!

[caption id="attachment_636" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Pay no attention to the Kraft Dinner in this photo..."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_637" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Teeth are nice and juicy red from home-grown strawberries"][/caption]