Strawberries

These are strawberries I picked from our garden last year. We've been getting berries this year, but not enough to make it into the house. In fact, the boys have been eating fresh strawberries from our garden every day for about 2 weeks now and today was the first day that I was able to eat one myself.

I'm not much of a gardener, but I'm learning. I should be researching and reading, but right now I'm just puttering and learning through trial and error. That's fine for now. Because our strawberries do so well, I don't need to do much other than let the boys pick and eat them.

We do cover the plants with a netting, to keep the birds from eating our delicious berries. I don't mind sharing, but they can be a little greedy! They're persistent too. The net doesn't always stop them. We've rescued 3 birds so far this season. We check throughout the day, just in case anyone is stuck and needs help getting out.


I usually make strawberry jam every year. Not with our berries though, because they don't last long enough. I'll go pick from a local farm and make jam from their berries. There isn't much better than eating homemade strawberry jam. I don't use a fancy recipe, just the one on the pectin box. When I made jam last year, I forgot to let them sit upside down, so a few didn't seal right. Oh well.

Later this month, after birthday celebrations and the end of the school year we'll return to our local strawberry farm and pick more berries for jam. Then, I'll spend a weekend afternoon - with 2 boys looking on, helping as much as they can - making more jam for the coming year.

What could be better?