October Sweetness

The older man with the elderly poodle said, "Get those strawberries. They're the best."

It was May and I was perusing the garden store during my lunch break.

I hadn't heard of the Gasana strawberry, but bought the plants anyway. I'm a  haphazard gardener and when I get plants at a huge discount, I'm likely to stick them in the ground and see what happens.

The plant gave me pretty purple blooms, which I plucked. I wanted the plants' energy to go into the plant, not making berries.

But they just kept blooming and blooming, and I got lazy or busy or both and just stopped plucking blooms sometime in July.

When the berries appeared, I started picking and eating them on my morning stroll around the yard.

As the daylight hours shrunk, the strolls around the yard stopped on weekdays.

But yesterday was sunny and bright, and I stopped to look at the strawberry bed, and found four ripe berries.

I didn't stop to take a photo. I just picked them, ate them and enjoyed a rare October treat.