Lovely, John. Thanks for sharing. We had a question in the Ask a Question forum last week from a lady who was, indeed, letting her strawberries sit on the ground . . . and wondering what was eating them. I forgot about the wonderful history, that putting straw under the plants keeps the berries clean, and that's why they were named 'Strawberries' in the first place.
I've tried in vain to grow strawberries here in Florida. Our harvest season is February into March and amongst the bugs, slugs, critters and birds I hardly ever saw a berry I could eat myself. Fact is, they are an annual here, as they rarely survive the brutal sauna of summer weather we have. It just was not worth it.
This spring I have planted 'Frais de Bois' in my daughter's garden in Salt Lake City. Years ago when she was growing up and we lived there I grew them with some success, but of course discovered that the berries are so small, and not exactly abundant that you need a lot of plants to produce any reasonable amount. I probably had 20 plants and a family of 4, so the 'early bird' got the little handful of delicious berries to put on their morning cereal. They do make very attractive, neat little plants with no runners, and are everbearing so the meager supply of fabulous fruit lasts through the summer.
I will be flying back there next week, so will get to see how the new plants are doing.
