Strawberry Varmints.

The “new” strawberry beds are the two smallish beds near the bell that were planted late last summer using runners from the initial pyramid. They have come along much faster than the original bed so far this spring, something I’ll attribute primarily to better winter sun (and the bonus of a mild winter).

In my experience strawberry season follows this sequence:

1. Notice some small blooms
2. A week or so later see that there were many more blooms than you originally noticed
3. A week or so later notice there are a lot of tiny green berries, many more than the abundant blooms you noticed the week before.
4. A couple of weeks later wonder if any of them will ever ripen completely as they seem to stall at the whitish/pink stage
5. The next day find two ripe berries and eat them without telling your spouse (who has asked regularly when the berries will ripen)
6. The next day pick maybe 8 or 9, eat half and bring the rest in to your spouse, because you are a berry martyr and selflessly saved the first ones for her….
7. The next day another dozen have ripened, you only eat 1/4 of them and bring the rest in for your spouse
8. The next day pick twice and still not keep up with the bright red avalanche of fresh strawberries. You confess to your spouse that you’ve been eating some of the earlier harvest only to learn she has been doing it for at least as long as you have….
9. A few days and thousands of berries later it stops as quickly as it started.
10. (You secretly are relieved but don’t admit this to anyone.)

We are currently around step 7 with the two back beds although our mutual confessions of strawberry infidelity took place this evening, perhaps ahead of schedule. 😉

At this point, it may dawn upon my beloved mrs cohutt that the title of the post might imply that she is in fact a strawberry varmint.

So, in order to deftly dodge any such misconceptions on her part, I offer the following picture as evidence to the contrary, a varmint conspicuously lurking among ripe strawberries.

Not to worry though, these perfectly ripened berries were subsequently saved from this marauding chipmunk: