Do Strawberries Call You?

 

I would say strawberries and tomatoes are two of my very favorite foods, and in Florida we are fortunate to be able to enjoy them year round, at least from the supermarket. Strawberries at Publix are now “fresh” from down south, and I have been exercising my right to take advantage of this, buying a container every week. I have them on cereal (overnight oats), cut up as dessert with a healthy spray of whipped cream, and straight from the container as a snack. Nothing beats a ripe strawberry.

I spent the first five years of my life on a farm where fields of tomatoes grew, but if you are a farmer, you know tomatoes and strawberries cannot be planted together, some disease or other. That did not stop my grandmom from having a strawberry patch at the back of the cow barn, and my mom and I visited it frequently when the berries were ripe, usually June in Maryland. I do not remember much about the care of berries back then. I was more in the eater category. I do remember seeing a black snake once as I moved back some leaves, and I high-tailed it out of there. But the memory of the juicy sweet berries overcame the fear of snakes and I was soon back at it. Grandmom made biscuits everyday and all that was needed for shortcake was to add a little sugar to the mix, nothing better than sun-warmed berries over hot out-of-the cookstove biscuits with a little fresh cow’s milk poured over.

Two of my uncles, Johnny and Clarence, continued the strawberry-growing tradition after they moved away. Uncle Johnny always had a huge vegetable garden with marigolds planted around the perimeter. He said that kept away the bad bugs.

And then in another spot, he planted strawberries each year, mulching them with straw to keep them warm through the cold weather. Uncle Clarence did the same, but strawberries were his only crop. I guess you can take the farmer out of the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the farmer. Both uncles seemed happiest when their hands were in the dirt. Of course, they were my two favorite uncles.

I have never attempted to grow strawberries and probably never will, but I must agree with plant experts that the taste of store-bought and home-grown are miles apart. In Delaware where I lived for over thirty years, I always went strawberry picking in June if at all possible. Our home was close to u-picks, one time just across the road, so availability was never a problem. Barrett’s Farm and Fifer’s Groves and Vegetables were too easy to ignore the opportunity. We had apples and peaches straight from the trees and strawberries when the signs went up. I know we feel like in Florida we are so lucky to have fresh everything, but central and southern Delaware is farm country, and looking back, I was lucky there, too. Even though I do not have a green thumb, I never lacked fresh fruit and veggies.

When we moved to Florida in 1978, we searched for u-picks and found Brown’s and Roger’s Farms. Roger’s was our favorite strawberry place and they are still growing them today. On Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/rogersfarmfla/), they had strawberries to pick last weekend with, hopefully, more to come. I am sure they know how to protect against this cold spell we are having. One thing we noticed when we moved here that was different from Delaware was the use of black plastic on the mounded strawberry rows, apparently a weed-deterrent and a ground warmer. I have to say I prefer straw and I will always swear that Delaware berries and tomatoes taste better…but when you’re in Paree…. Whether they are from Delaware or Florida, there is nothing like the smell of strawberries on your hands when you are capping and cutting them up.

When we moved here, we also looked for u-pick citrus groves and found one somewhere over near Hawthorne, but hard freezes quickly destroyed the trees within a couple of years after our move and we never found another. I cannot really remember exactly where it was but it was a novelty to us at the time, not able to grow oranges in Delaware. I do remember it being around Christmas-time when we did our citrus picking. Tangerines were and are my favorites with navels coming in second.

I always tell myself that I am going to make some strawberry jam with the berries I buy, but I am afraid they never last that long. I have a super easy microwave refrigerator jam recipe that I have made a few times, and it is delicious, but now I am trying to watch the amount of sugar and salt I eat so jam is on the back burner.

I read that strawberries are native to North America so that may be why we love them so much. Formerly abundant in the wild, I have never encountered any in my lifetime. I am planning to keep an eye on Roger’s Farm Facebook page and if the weather permits, I will journey over there soon, probably not to pick but to buy already picked. Then maybe I can make some of the refrigerator jam. The strawberries are calling me. Here is the link to the YouTube strawberry jam video I use whenever I can stop myself from eating all the berries…super easy!

In the Beginning...

Me, Aunt Sadie & Cindy

My mom and I lived with my grandparents until I was six years old. Pop-pop was a tenant farmer in Maryland on the Delmarva peninsula and lived in an old white two-story farmhouse, the kind where the stairs go straight up from the front door. I fell down those stairs once. The only thing I remember about the fall was afterwards as my mom rubbed some awful smelling stuff on a lump on my forehead. Later I found out it was turpentine. Those narrow stairs led to some cold, cold bedrooms in the wintertime. When we climbed up to bed, my mom carried a brick she had heated on the kitchen cook stove. She wrapped it in a towel and tucked it under the quilts to keep my feet warm.

Pop-pop planted a huge field of tomatoes every year, and I remember carrying water in a Mason jar to him and my Uncle Johnny when the sun was high in the sky. Shoeless, I never worried where I stepped or thought much about the hot black dirt squishing up between my toes. When the tomatoes were ripe, they became lunch accompanied only by a salt shaker. The sun-warmed red juice ran down my chin and tiny yellow seeds dried and stuck to my shirt front. When I got back to the house, Grandmom met me on the closed porch off the kitchen where the big hand pump was. After a couple pumps of air, cold water spewed out. She washed my stained mouth with a wrung-out cloth, clucking under her breath. My dirty feet did not seem to matter.

Pop-pop had a small herd of dairy cows, and many mornings I would get up early to go with him for the milking. Standing back at a safe distance, I looked in fascination as the cows all lined up in their stalls and stood quietly with only a swish of their tails every now and then. They munched on hay as the buckets filled, and I watched Pop-pop pour the creamy liquid through cheesecloth into tall silver milk cans. When he finished, he would load up the cans, take them down our long lane, turn right onto a dirt road, and drive to a four-way stop sign. He left them there at the side of the road for someone to pick up later.

Pop-pop and me and cousin Moey

After the milking was done, it was time for breakfast. Grandmom stood over the hot cook stove frying pancakes, my favorite food which I doused with blackstrap molasses. Heavy eyelids mixed with satisfaction took over, and usually I curled up behind the cook stove for a mid-morning nap.

Most days, nothing earth-shattering happened, but life on a farm is an educational process for a little girl. Cows and horses do not get along and must be pastured separately. I think the horses must have been leftovers from plow-pulling days because I never remember anyone riding a horse, but Pop-pop did have a favorite white one. Where there are cows, there are bulls, and we had a mean one.

Walnut trees lined our long lane, and when the nuts dropped to the ground below, Grandmom and I collected them for shelling. Getting those shells off was tricky and involved two bricks and fast fingers. Even gathering the nuts was tricky for me, because I had to keep one eye on the mean bull who roamed in a field just beyond the trees. I could read his thoughts. He was waiting for me to drop my guard so he could come barreling through that barbed wire and get me. He stalked me and Grandmom up and down the fence line.

Grandmom and me by the woodpile

Grandmom was always alert to his nearness, too. You see, this bull had gored and killed that favorite white horse of Pop-pop’s. I don’t know how it happened, but I remember the yelling and shouting and the fear it instilled into my soul. To this day, I remain hand-sweating, heart-racing scared of bulls.