The first time I can remember encountering a strawberry was through a can of soda. There were lots of these sodas in a cooler during a cookout at my grandparents’ farm. Tons, and I was told I could help myself. I liked the strawberry flavor the best. So exotic.
It was just a matter of days before I encountered the real deal — fresh strawberries from a patch by the fence. Easy to pick and plentiful in early summer. I much preferred these to the raspberries and blackberries I was also charged with picking since they were in this extraordinarily large bramble that started at another fence but grew through it into an adjoining field. I was to pick all the strawberries and all the raspberries and all the blackberries too. In pants and long sleeves, I was directed.
And best to do it by noon before it got too hot. I can’t recall how many buckets I filled with raspberries, blackberries and strawberries — but there were a lot.
The work was just beginning. Over the course of the whole weekend there was boiling of berries, boiling of cans, boiling of berries in cans, and lots and lots of sugar. Big bags of C&H all over the place. The red and black stains everywhere. It was canning weekend.
Fresh berries from a farm are one thing, amazing really. So red and sweet, both big and small. But if you’ve never made jam or tasted fresh-made jam, I suggest you do it soon. It’s out of this world. There’s the smell of wax, and pectin, the essence of steam throughout and the overpowering smell of berries and sugar permeating all as a form of pre-caramel immersion of the senses. Amidst that, there is the jam just sitting there for you — the essence of summer.
There were other canning weekends for beans and tomatoes, I seem to recall, but nothing beat the jams. Even now.
Though raspberries and blackberries had their place, it’s strawberries that trenched themselves in my memory. To this day, they hold a special place for me and I eat them all year round, though, I question some that seem to be merely in disguise in winter.
At farmers’ markets, it can be windy and rainy and there they are, from a jet or a hothouse I suppose. They do the trick but there is nothing like a fresh-picked, in-season berry like what are coming in right about now.
A few years ago, I tried my hand at creating a strawberry mound with layers of dirt in tiered half circles after watching this video series on gardening with my daughter. That was also the time I had a co-worker who lived on the coast jam a straw bale into her Rav4 so I could spread it around the plants. Rav4s can hold quite a bit, but straw bales are pretty big. And it turned out it was a hay bale, which is different, and actually sprouted wheat, which I let grow for a while, then regretted.
But back to the main point. Strawberries. They grew OK, I mean maybe a quart total, and it was then I learned my daughter liked warm strawberries rather than cold ones since she would devour them from the garden but not so much from the fridge.
Once the season was over, I tried techniques to overwinter the plants that were probably for other climates and didn’t work here. And with the hay growing everywhere, the mound was abandoned.
Two years ago, out of the blue, my daughter demanded we grow strawberries again. Unfortunately, all the garden space was already taken so I bought one of those hanging plants that died pretty quickly with no strawberries. So, last year, I made the commitment to one whole garden box that did pretty well overall. And I left the plants in the box over winter just to see if they’d survive.
They did. I think the trick is to just let them go. And now they are thriving and we are getting dozens of berries. And you know what? They are pretty darn good. Not enough of them for canning, but enough to enjoy until the plums come in and then it’s canning weekend for them.
Plum preserves is not the same as strawberry jam, but it’s close. And if I learned anything from my grandparents and their Lockeford farm, it’s that you use what you can with what you have now because you may not have it for long. But there will always be strawberries and the memories from them.
Jon Mays is the editor-in-chief of the Daily Journal. He can be reached at jon@smdailyjournal.com. Follow Jon on X @jonmays.
(3) comments
Strawberries bring back happy memories, Jon, especially from a summer job I had in my early teens, picking strawberries from a farm outside my hometown Trondheim. I was the only boy among a flock of silly, strawberry picking girls, who enjoyed teasing me by throwing strawberries on my tired, bent back. Hard work, and not very well paid, but we were told that most of the berries we picked were sent to restaurants in France, so they had to be the best in the world, of course, and worth picking, - for very little pay. But, we could eat as much as we wanted, - provided we picked them ourselves!
Strawberry Fields Forever...
What a great childhood recollection of strawberries, Mr. Mays, and of your forays into gardening. But thanks for nothing – unless you’ve perfected strawberry ice cream and are inviting me to an ice cream social, I’ve been told to stop at the store for two different cartons (perpetually shrinking in size, while blowing up in price) of strawberry ice cream. One carton for the sole experience of eating ice cream and a different carton for serving a la mode… On second thought, you have my thanks as I’ll gobble down a few scoops, perhaps for lunch. Now, where to go for a delicious pie…
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