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When my grandson, Kane, was about 15 years old he and I decided we would plant a 15 by 20 foot strawberry patch. I bought about 25 plants, good, healthy ever bearing strawberries from a reliable nursery and when they arrived, Kane and I set them out and the first season we had a pretty good crop to share between the two families.
The second season we had a bigger and better crop. Many of the strawberry plants had multiplied and we worked hard to keep the weeds down. That season the strawberries were bigger and sweeter than the season before and earlier that season we had added another 20 or so plants that were taking root nicely. There truly is nothing tastier than fresh picked strawberries and it was a delight to see three of our neighbors children carefully picking and eating fresh strawberries for about a half hour one early evening since they had never done anything like that before.
The third season Kane was able to get a summer job that took him away from helping me, but I managed pretty well and we had strawberries that we even were able to freeze. Some of them were almost 4 inches across and large or small they were the sweetest. That early summer we even made fresh strawberry ice cream! We got about 65 quarts of strawberries that season. What a delight!
At this point of the game Carl and I were getting pretty old to even be riding the mowers for cutting about 4 acres of lawn so we had been hiring the same team of men to maintain the lawns for about 3 years now.
The forth season arrived and Kane was now getting ready to join the Navy that summer. I could not find any teens to work the weeding and when I could I usually set them out into other parts of the garden. I was able to pick some of the berries as they came along and the lawn maintenance men came and went every two weeks as usual. One for the riding mower and one with the weed whacker and I always thought they were the same two guys since the same one always came to get their check.
Well, I decided I need to go out and pick the rest of the berries as I knew they were at their peak and I almost had a heart attack when I discovered that someone had totally weed whacked the whole strawberry patch down to the ground, strawberries and all.
Apparently my regular guy had to hire a temporary helper and put him on the weed whacker and no one noticed where he went.
What a loss, what a shame, what disappointment!
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Author Bio Box: Arlene Wright Correll
 For more gardening or cooking information click http://www.learn-america.com/
To see Arlene’s Gardens and to read her gardening diaries or click on Arlene’s Books where you can download or buy her gardening & cook books. Arlene says, “All my royalties from the sale of my books go to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and I thank you for visiting my site.”
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