The First Strawberries

Our son, Will, loves plants and he loves fruit. For his birthday last spring, his grandma bought him two cherry trees which seem to be doing okay so far, even after being ravaged by Japanese beetles last summer. This year, she gave him three strawberry plants. We're still working on putting in our "big garden" so I planted them in these pretty ceramic pots that my mom got at a yard sale last year.

They're such pretty plants - with vivid, pink flowers, something I'd never seen before - I thought all strawberry flowers were white! The first berries appeared a few weeks ago and begin to grow and to turn slightly pink.

They grew redder and redder until the other morning when Will deemed it time to pick them.

He plucked them off the plant, I washed them and he declared them, "tart at first, delicious at second."

I hope to put them in the ground before too long and to significantly add to their numbers. There are sooooo many good ways to use strawberries -- eating them out of hand, strawberry-mint lemonade, strawberry shortcake, strawberry jam...

You might also like:

• Wild Blackberry Sorbet With Lavender & Garden Mint
• Chocolate Raspberry Tart
• Homemade Maraschino Cherries

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