Fresh Strawberries

We are well into June and the strawberries have been plentiful this season. They are a June bearing variety (vs everbearing) and they pretty much have been ripening since the beginning of the month. First, just one or two a day and now close to a dozen ripen each day. We have seen the robins carrying a few away, and even worse, are the strawberries that they only eat half and leave the rest.

June 13th about quarter sized

Home grown strawberries don't need to be as red as store bought strawberries to be ripe, although the above are fully red. Usually when they are this red the robins will find them, however since there are so many the robins leave us some.

The berries were planted two seasons ago in the box on the right (5 plants). They have taken over that box completely and moved into the next box (and everywhere in between) via many runners.

You can see in the close up how many berries are still in the baby stage. We hope to have fresh strawberries for the whole month.