"These strawberries taste like fine wine," declared Margy, my pal and fellow strawberry picker. We had been picking for over three hours and sampling the luscious little red gems along the way - maybe we were getting a little tipsy! This is one of the best strawberry years we have had in a long time. The weather has been good and we have had access to irrigation at the right time. I understand it's going to get hot. That's not so great for the berries, so if you're thinking strawberry shortcake, you might want to add it to the menu this weekend!
Cruising by the strawberry patch at the end of the day when I scooped up a red beauty and popped it in my mouth -- and stopped in my tracks. Now THAT was a strawberry. Believe me, I have spent hours crawling through strawberry patches, picked thousands of berries, tasted at least well into the upper hundreds. You would think I might be a little jaded. Or at least a bit cool toward these innocuous looking little fruits that take over my life and back for the month of June. But I really had to stop and just taste that berry. Somehow the perfect combination of springtime rains, sweet organic earth, afternoon sun, and essence of berry had conjoined to splash a sparkle of flavor across my tongue that deserved the silence and stillness of utter appreciation. In an extremely busy time for market gardening when strawberry picking becomes yet one more huge task in a day overfull with patches to tend and fences to mend, I appreciated the reminder to stop and savor the fruits of our labor. You ma
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