Sunday, May 22, 2005

Strawberry Fields Forever

Just to give me an excuse to continue the Beatles-title theme, I have to brag a little bit about our strawberry patch in the backyard. When we bought the house, we were told that it had stood empty since midwinter or so; the previous owner, an elderly widow, had been moved to a nursing home by her kids, where she promptly died. Weeds had pretty much taken over the backyard.

There's a patch about 10 x 10 or so next to the tool shed that had gone wild with strawberries. No rows or anything, just a huge tangle of runners interspersed with weeds, which I pull when I think about it. I haven't done anything else to it at all, but I have been getting a huge bowl of berries out of this patch every two to three days since late April, and it shows no sign of slowing down. We are just about bathing in strawberries and cream.

Yesterday, Mike took the weedwhacker to the dense weedy growth encroaching on the shed. He didn't tell me he was going to do this, or I would have picked the berries along the side before he did so. Instead, he made weedwhacker daquiris. He'd be going along and SPLOOSH, SPLAT, he'd hit another clump of berries & send red pulp flying like something out of a slasher movie. It was gross & funny at the same time.

Off to finish a strawberry tart. :-)

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