"Berried" Treasure

 Searching for strawberries in the spring is a garden adventure I love to share with my daughter Kyra.  From her wheelchair seat high above the ground, she examines the berry patch, kicking her feet at every bright spot she sees.  Sometimes it’s a ripe strawberry.  Sometimes a bug.  Sometimes a dead leaf.  It’s a new adventure every day.  Kyra’s job during berry-hunting is holding the produce bowl while I pick.  Now, this is no small feat, with her arms in constant motion, her fingers reaching for the warm, bright berries I toss into the bowl, and a cat constantly repositioning himself on her lap.

It’s great fun to hunt for these tasty treasures.  But, after discovering the nutritional benefits of the strawberry, you might enjoy your hunt even more.  According to webmd.com, strawberries are “… among the top 20 fruits in antioxidant capacity and are a good source of manganese and potassium. Just one serving -- about eight strawberries -- provides more vitamin C than an orange.”

That tiny berry packs a punch!  You might find that strawberries grown at home, or those you find at your local farmers’ market, aren’t as large and perfectly-formed as those you find in a Styrofoam box covered in cellophane in your grocer’s produce aisle.  Even though the home-grown variety may be paltry in size, the taste makes up for it.  And, unlike the raspberry, whose seeds cause tube trouble, strawberries adapt easily to g-tube feedings.

We have successfully grown a mix of June-bearing and ever-bearing strawberries along the southern side of our house, under shrubs facing the east, in hanging pots, in raised beds, and in Kyra’s window-box garden (so you know they withstand a fair amount of “yanking”).  Strawberry plants, once fruiting is complete, make an attractive ground cover that fills a space quickly, chokes out weeds and withstands frigid Iowa winters.  

For best production, the strawberry bed should be allowed to “rest” the first year of planting, and ploughed under and replanted after the fourth year. (However, procrastinators should not be discouraged.  We maintained a highly productive strawberry bed for 7 years before beginning our rotation process.)

Finally, since the strawberry is a member of the rose family, Shakespeare might well have said, “A strawberry by any other name would taste as sweet.”

• Click for a very berry treat recipe!