June, Strawberries, and the Amaryllis That Simply Refuses to Be Ordinary

 The strawberries are ready. And I am, frankly, delighted.

 

We grow our own, as you'll know, and I cannot overstate the difference. I really cannot. Shop-bought strawberries  and I say this with no malice toward the supermarkets, they do try, shop-bought strawberries are a pale imitation. A photograph of a strawberry. A polite suggestion that a strawberry once passed through the vicinity. They look the part, I'll give them that. Perfectly red, perfectly round, lined up in their little plastic cradles like they've been told to behave. But the taste. The taste just isnt there

Now eat one straight from the plant. Go on. Bend down, pick one that's properly, deeply, gloriously red all the way through, and eat it on the spot with the soil still on your boots and a bee doing its business somewhere nearby. That is a strawberry. That is what a strawberry is actually supposed to taste like. Sweet, sharp, warm from the sun, and absolutely nothing like what's sitting in that punnet at three pounds fifty. If you have never eaten a strawberry straight from your own plant, I'm sorry, but you haven't truly eaten a strawberry. You've eaten the idea of one.

In our house, June means strawberry puddings and strawberry jam, and Sara is already on the case on both fronts. The jam will be made, the jars will be sterilised and labelled, and by the end of the month we'll have a shelf of them sitting in the kitchen looking magnificent and tasting even better in January when the world has gone grey and you need reminding that summer is a real thing that genuinely happens. That first jar of strawberry jam on a cold morning in February is not just breakfast. It's evidence. It's proof.

My personal favourite — and I will not be talked out of this — is a bowl of proper vanilla ice cream with fresh strawberries on top. That is it. That is the pinnacle. No fuss, no faff, no elaborate dessert architecture. Just ice cream, strawberries, and the quiet satisfaction of a man who grew them himself. I have eaten some wonderful things in my sixty years on this earth. That bowl, made with strawberries from our own plot, is right up there. Every single time.

Now — a quick and very happy update on the amaryllis, because it deserves a moment.

If you've been following along, you'll know this amaryllis has been something of a saga. It flowered, it rested, we waited, it did very little for quite some time, and I will admit there were moments — brief ones, I'm not made of stone — where I wondered if we'd seen the best of it. Well. It has come back. Not just come back — come back with a second flower head of the most extraordinary creamy yellow. Manifest is the word, and I'm sticking with it. It sat there on the windowsill looking absolutely magnificent, like it had planned the whole thing all along and was just waiting for the right moment to show off. I think we can say with confidence that the wait was worth it.

Strawberries in the bowl, amaryllis in the greenhouse, and June finally feeling like June.

It doesn't get much better than this. It really doesn't.

Until next time — keep growing, keep picking, and for goodness' sake eat one straight from the plant.