Did you know that you can literally taste the difference between store-bought strawberries that are shipped across the country to your grocery store, and strawberries that are allowed to ripen on the vine, then plucked fresh to eat moments later?
I would know. I’ve done tests – in my own back yard! 
We’re overrun with accidental strawberries right now. In the last 10 days I’ve picked 3 quarts of the berries . . . and all because of the two tiny bushes I planted in our square foot garden when we moved in two years ago.
This was our brand new garden back in 2010:
That lone little strawberry plant has since spread out through the planting bed, creating four large plants and pretty much turning the box into nothing but an accidental strawberry garden.
Have I done anything to care for it in the last two years? Nope, not at all . . . because the first year the strawberry plan refused to grow and I pretty much gave up on it. I’m serious. . . it did not expand in size at all.
Clearly size is no longer an issue.
Ryan and I are enjoying the effects of this accidental crop, but I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ve got company. Every time I check on the garden (what – I’m not going to neglect it now that it’s doing something for us! 🙂 I find half-eaten berries either on the plant or scattered on the ground around the box.
Clearly the neighborhood squirrels – or foxes – have a sweet tooth. I know for a fact that the foxes go straight past the garden on their nightly route.
How do I know this? Because it’s right under our bedroom window. . . and the shriek of the foxes has torn me frightfully from my slumber many a time.
But I digress.
All of our berries have been surprisingly tasty, though they range in shape and size from “little and wonky” (Bent in a C shape with the stem growing out of the wrong end) to “large and uniform” (aka standard strawberry shape, as seen below). Surprisingly, though, many of the more “normal” looking berries are growing from the offshoot plants and not the initial bush that I planted.
That has me wondering if my initial plant was a little “off” to start with.
But enough rambling . . . I’ve got another quart of berries to pick!
8 Comments
I have an accidental strawberry patch too! I didn’t realize they actually take things over … so what started as one plant three years ago is now taking up 3/4 of a huge garden bed! I’m definitely not complaining, because I LOVE local strawberries, but I think I’m going to have to put a third garden bed in now. You know, for all the veggies I can’t grow right now!
Yeah, I’m kind of pleased that at least one good thing has come out of my gardening laziness (or lack of time) this year! Strawberries galore!
I’ve found that usually fuzzy creatures (like foxes and squirrels) will typically take/eat the whole berry, but birds will often eat only part. This year, we’ve had several rolly pollys and spiders munching on ours and like birds they tend to eat only part of the berry.
Aha! Good to know. . . . and we have plenty of birds around the yard so that makes perfect sense. Thanks!
From what I know, you are supposed to kill off half of your patch each year because the best strawberries come from the new growth. I believe my great-grandma laid down boards in strips to kill some each year and then alternated their position the next year. That way, you also have walking paths to pick your berries!
I love fresh berries! I used to help my grandpa with his strawberries as a child. When I got older, we moved to a house that had raspberry vines growing all around it, and my brother, sister and I spent many a summer day eating as many berries as we could pick.
I am so jealous!! That looks so amazingly yummy. I want to grow some. A goal of mine is to plant a garden by next year…
Quite a nice little garden you have going there! Maybe the wedding cake should be white chocolate with strawberries?