Yummy Strawberries

The first year I put strawberries in, I bought a package containing strawberry roots from my local nursery. I followed the directions impeccably, not much to it really; soak the roots, stick 'em in the ground. Not so much as one plant appeared. I did something wrong but I have no idea what. Not wanting a repeat of the first year, the second year I bought little strawberry plants. The kind you find in the herb section of any gardening place. They grew and bore tiny little strawberries that were actually more effort than they were worth. You could actually hold twenty in your hand and still have room for more. Well no matter, they were hybrids and I was told they would not survive the winter anyhow. So live and learn and go without strawberries for another year.

Last year, those miserable little strawberry plants survived. They don't have runners like real strawberry plants so they kind of look like clumpy thwarted bushes and as such tend to be sullen. They grudgingly flower here and there and throw a berry out now and then just because they have to. In addition to those grumps, I bought twenty strawberry roots and made sure there was at least one or two green leaves attached to each root. The package said twenty but I separated close to thirty roots. Now these are strawberry plants! They flowered abundantly and we got large berries. Runners appeared, zooming in straight lines as far as they go, dropping the occasional new plantlet into the ground.

This year, those silly little herb strawberry plants survived yet another winter. Funny though, the berries seem to be getting bigger. May-be the plants are just maturing or may-be they figure they better adjust their attitude since their replacements are sitting in the next patch over. But I'm wondering if perhaps there is some cross pollination going on. The other real strawberry plants are just doing beautifully, setting large, tasty berries and surviving the winters without blinking a leaf.

The berries are just about done now, I'll probably go through the patch a couple more times just to catch any stragglers. I'd say the strawberry plant population has at least tripled and they are growing down into the garden. That's fine,it's always easy to make the garden a bit bigger to accommodate willing plants. And you know what they say - the more strawberries, the more shortcake!