Strawberry Delight

What a delight it was to harvest fresh strawberries from my garden last week!  I planted them last year from starters that my mother gave me from her garden.  She coached me on what I needed to do to help them grow....something about trimming the runners and looking for the mother plant...which I partially understood and quickly forgot about as my life became busier. Over time I noticed them leafing out more and spreading across the ground...quickly bolting through the wire cages we placed around them to keep them contained.  Last week my partner and I were planting tomatoes in a nearby bed and I noticed an abundance of red, ripe strawberries!  That's it...no watering...no fussing with the runners or looking for mother plants.  It reminds me that all living things are designed to live and thrive.  We harvested a whole bowl full of them, photographed them, sliced them up and put some agave nectar on them. We then kept them in the fridge to add to shakes, cereal, or just eat plain.  We now have a second group of strawberries ready to harvest.  Coincidentally, I recieived fresh strawberries and rhubarb in my fresh market bag this past week from the Greener Grocer.  Now we are on the look out for new recipes to use all these strawberries in.  Our next endevour is to make a strawberry-rhubarb pie!!! I am including a link to a recipe and to Rhoads Farm in Cicleville, Ohio, where the strawberries in my market bag were from.  They are local and delicious for those who do not have access to them in their backyards. 

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-challenge/grandmas-straw...

http://www.rhoadsfarmmarket.com/