The Soul of a Forager: May 2009

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Strawberries

Oh yes the strawberries are here. I picked three quarts worth this afternoon. I only picked maybe half of them. The story of how I found them goes something like this. Last year around this time I walked up to the top of the hill behind the house just to look around and check things out. I was walking back down the hill when I noticed a plant that had gone to seed. The seed heads didn't look familiar, so I checked the plant out. It was wild sorrel. So I start walking again and notice strawberry plants EVERYWHERE. Now there are two types of wild strawberry plants. One is called Woodland strawberry and is tasteless. The birds will not even eat them. The other is the one I have growing. The berries are small and very intensely strawberry flavored. They are rare as well. Anyway, the strawberry plants were starting to bloom. I made a mental note to check back on them to see if they were the real deal. About two weeks later I'm bush hogging the area and as I'm going along I look down and notice little red strawberries. I stop immediately and pick one. My first thought was, OH MY GOD!!! I just fell to my knees and started looking around. There were strawberries everywhere! They make eating any other strawberry hard to do. They last for only two weeks. The most I picked last year was seven quarts. Hopefully there will be more this year!