Spotlight Plant Of The Month For June: Strawberries

Spotlight Plant Of The Month For June: Strawberries

One of the earliest signs of summer in the region is when the fruit stands, grocers, and farmer's markets offer the locally grown strawberries. There is no fruit that is sweeter, no perfume that is more seductive than that of fresh, ripe strawberries, and there are no finer strawberries than those precious ruby-red fruits that are grown locally!

There are June-bearing strawberries, everbearing strawberries, and day-neutral strawberries. A person can literally grow and pick strawberries from June until frost. One can buy strawberries in the dead of winter down at the local supermarket. Yet, the locally grown strawberries of June are the best berries of the year!

They might not be the largest, or the most perfectly shaped berries, but one taste, and it is heaven on earth! No sugar is necessary to enjoy the sweet-tart taste of a perfectly grown strawberry plucked at the peak of perfection.

Strawberries are memories in the making. I can recall my mother making homemade strawberry jam. The house was filled with the rich aroma of strawberries, better than any potpourri, uplifting the heart and soul. We would watch her fill immaculately cleaned jelly jars with the rich, syrupy concotion. She would add a thin layer of melted paraffin over the top of the precious mixture and place them on a towel to cool. I can recall the sunlight reflecting the richest red color of precious jewels within those jars.

The best part was yet to come: Licking the pot! We would take pieces of bread and scour the pot before it cooled to gather the last sweet drops of jam that were clinging to the sides and bottom of the jam pot. That was wonderful!

As I grew older and started my own family, the strawberry picking expedition became an annual event. We would go to one of the many farms that opened for pick-your-own strawberries. We ate as much as we picked, and we always picked more than we needed. We would hurry home and spend the afternoon making jams, freezing berries, and converting those wonderful fruits into pies, shortcakes, and other wonderful confections. Of course, we continued to eat a good many strawberries just as they were. We never grew tired of this annual picking and feeding frenzy. My children, now grown, remember those days, and mention how they would still like to go on a strawberry expedition.

So now there is a new generation of family members. The grandkids had their first strawberry safari this past year, and was it ever a hit! Mom and her sis, my daughters, accompanied us and even more memories were made. A few weeks ago, we had the grandkids over for the weekend. I opened a jar of early June magic and my grandkids spread it over waffles and toast one morning. All four of them started to share their memories of that warm, perfect day when we all went out on our berry-picking expedition. So, a family tradition has been established. It's a tradition that everyone here in our bountiful and beautiful region can establish in their own families, too.

There is nothing like it. No Florida-grown or Napa Valley-grown strawberry can compare. Those berries down at the supermarket may be more perfectly shaped, but they are hollow imitations of the "real thing". If you are like me, June just wouldn't be June without the locally grown strawberries!