Wild Strawberries

Beware! Watch your feet! The wild strawberries are ripening under them and you don't want to trample these tiny treasures.

We have been waiting for the strawberries. All spring, we scoped out fields and roadsides for strawberry patches. We watched our own cultivated strawberries ripen, and this Friday we picked the first red juicy berries from the garden. We knew the time had come to find the wild ones.

Wild strawberries are tricky. Their leaves are very similar in appearance and even size to cultivated ones. But their berries are tiny! And they hide beneath the leaves. In addition, the plants don't produce nearly as many berries as the berries you find in an orchard. Size and abundance are both things cultivated strawberries are bred for. But when you find wild strawberries, even a few of them, the taste is like sunshine.

We have only once before found a sizeable patch of fruiting strawberries, and even then, it took us an hour for the two of us to collect a scant cup. Today, where the road runs along our property, Thag spotted a glimpse of red. We searched and searched and found about 10 berries, 2 ripe enough to eat. We each savored one. No, we did not share with our daughter. She had already eaten ALL the ripe berries from our garden!