Strawberries!

This morning brought the first bowl full of strawberries. They are even sweeter than I remember. And so rewarding to grow - a couple weedings a season, one heavy application of compost, a liberal thinning of old plants to make room for new runners... We have one patch of berries that's about 6x6, and another strip under the espaliered apple and cherry trees that is maybe 2x24. That amount of space gives us June strawberries aplenty, til the mixing bowls runneth over... Most of the berries go in the chest freezer for winter smoothies. Last year's freezer berries held out until about a month ago.

Generally the baby bunnies, who prefer tender crunchy stems of berry clusters to actual berries, thin our crop for us. But they are absent this year, as is the Big Fat Woodchuck From Hell. And now I fear I've cursed us by typing that, and this is only the calm before the storm, and our small garden will soon be overrun with organized forces of armed vermin... Phooey.