More strawberry musings
Jun. 17th, 2008 03:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexxkayI have mentioned rot:ripe ratios in several earlier posts. Part of why they concern me is that once they go up, they pretty much don't go down again until the season is over. At least, not without *major* work over a weekend. I'm now holding steady at 3:1, due to slacking last weekend. Still getting more good ones than household + work will reliably eat, though, so not tragic.
I was initially surprised at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mermaidlady's recent statement, "I think I had over two pounds in less than 15 minutes." That's *way* more than I get. But then I remembered -- I have the pickiest standards of anyone I know.
There are (I think) good reasons for this pickiness. I harvest so many strawberries that any particular strawberry I pick is very likely to be eaten by someone who isn't me. A fair amount of them go to people who have never had non-store-bought strawberries before. I don't want them to think of me as "that crazy person who gives away yucky strawberries," I want them to think of me as "that crazy person who is giving away such awesome strawberries!" :-) So I am extremely careful to cull out any strawberry that I think might produce a bad reaction in a stranger. And if I care so much about what strangers think, I am even *more* concerned about the reactions of friends and colleagues!
Also, I spend time removing semi-rotten berries from the plants; other folks just leave them there, saving valuable time to harvest good ones. So it should not surprise me that others fill their buckets much faster than I do.
I was initially surprised at
mermaidlady's recent statement, "I think I had over two pounds in less than 15 minutes." That's *way* more than I get. But then I remembered -- I have the pickiest standards of anyone I know. There are (I think) good reasons for this pickiness. I harvest so many strawberries that any particular strawberry I pick is very likely to be eaten by someone who isn't me. A fair amount of them go to people who have never had non-store-bought strawberries before. I don't want them to think of me as "that crazy person who gives away yucky strawberries," I want them to think of me as "that crazy person who is giving away such awesome strawberries!" :-) So I am extremely careful to cull out any strawberry that I think might produce a bad reaction in a stranger. And if I care so much about what strangers think, I am even *more* concerned about the reactions of friends and colleagues!
Also, I spend time removing semi-rotten berries from the plants; other folks just leave them there, saving valuable time to harvest good ones. So it should not surprise me that others fill their buckets much faster than I do.