Such cute little plants

I succumbed, November or December or thereabouts, to the glowing description in I think it was a Burpee’s catalog of perfect springtime strawberries, while reminiscing about the early June mornings when my folks would take us kids to a pick-your-own farm, bringing home stacks of boxes of just-pickeds.  The jams and puree we would process for the year to come. How intensely strawberry the car smelled and then the house did, for days. How good those berries tasted warm and straight from the sun, so far removed from the puncture-proof stuff in the grocery stores.

Well, those were cute little plants in that box. I’d forgotten they were coming. I figured either the winter or I would kill them in no time; the people who grow strawberries always seem to be passionate about them and I just wasn’t. I didn’t dare be. I was still waiting for my raspberries to do anything in their pot, planted there to contain the prickly canes from taking over the world. Raspberries can be a ton of stabby work if their roots are allowed to ramble.

And yet on their third year they still sulked in that pot, a few leaves and, eh. So I figured I just wasn’t much at container gardening.

And yet those three baby plants decided to be a second opinion. Strawberries! I quickly put one of the bird netting tents over the pot, and so far, so good. I have conditioned my critters not to believe there could be anything of interest in those Costco pots. Heck, I conditioned *me.*

Having been totally shown up by the newcomer, the baba raspberry is suddenly about to burst into bloom for the first time. It’s still small but maybe it can be mighty after all, too, in taste if not in quantity quite yet.

I hope. I’ve only got a catalog description to go by so far.