Runner in the Garden

I have been thinking about plants and God and how God compared us to a seed in good soil, crowded with weeds, and hard soil. I have been weeding and thinning my strawberry beds. I have been finding strawberry plants that are plant-on-top-of plant-on-top-of-plant. Thinking, no wonder I got so few berries this year. In addition to the the weather, I have never thinned these before. And, suddenly that is new information for me to process. 

Because this Honeoye type of strawberry is supposed to be a freezer-packer. And…guess what? I didn’t have the courage to go ahead and thin them before because I loved them too much to do it. I planted them in 2024. I didn’t thin that that year because I figured they had a hard year and needed to be babied. I just left them. Come 2025, I didn’t thin them again. I was having a rough summer and I didn’t feel like going outside. 

This year, I didn’t thin them in the spring because I would have lost the harvest. So, now I am thinning them and finding that WOW! I have a LOT of plants. So, I am finding clumps of strawberries that have literally never been thinned. These are three year old strawberries, they aren’t woody. They are beautiful. This is why I say I loved them too much to thin them.

In life, I’ve been through some rough patches. I am not gonna lie. Everyone has had rough patches. I have had rough patches that well, made me feel like I was doing everything wrong. Making me feel like I couldn’t do it right even though I expected success. I was a very successful student. I have been a very unsuccessful nonstudent. Not really because I did anything wrong. Rather, because I have been in the wrong place. There was too much crowding in my field. So many people are better at it than me, even though I really didn't enjoy it or even want to do it long-term. 

So I am looking at it now and thinking: I’ve had these rough patches and lack of success because I am in the wrong place at the wrong time. And, instead of blaming myself, I need to go to the RIGHT PLACE at the RIGHT TIME. Guess where that is? Literally, where I am right now. Working on selling my crafts and some plants while tutoring on the side. Because, that is where I am meant to be. Otherwise, I am just that third or fourth separate strawberry plant on top of the others, sucking the nutrients away from someone else who is also packed into a spot where there isn’t enough room for them to grow. 

So, about these strawberry plants. They are $5 each or a bundle of 10 for $42. They are healthy and will do well separated from other plants. Less than a month ago, they sent out runners. I collected over 100 runners from them and now I have thinned about 180 mature plants and first or second year plants from the patch. None of them are over 2-3 years old because they haven’t been in my patch for more than three years. I bought them from Fedco Trees in spring of 2024. 

They have been great, they just need way more room than I can provide and keep showing by doing things like sending out runners, that next year they are ready to produce fruit in the right place at the right time. In YOUR garden. Isn’t it funny how life works on the same principles and my garden?

Update: Now they are in a dedicated fridge at exactly 34 degrees Farenheit. No apples, nothing except strawberry plants at the moment. Eventually, there will be some Columbine seeds that I intend to start soon, but right now its just them. Chillin...

Approximate 100 Bare Root Strawberries that this Story is About