Our Rural Roots

Katie Pratt, Contributor

Childhood summers on the farm were defined by specific tasks: helping Mom in her massive vegetable garden, preparing for the county fair, baling hay and straw, and picking strawberries.

At the east end of the near garden, my mom's strawberry patch bubbled up a deep green in early spring. Berries seemed to magically appear. First, we'd find just enough to fill our pockets on our way to chore each morning. Then, we'd fill a bowl once a day, and soon, we were picking twice a day.

A focused 15-minute bike ride to the west of our farm, my grandparents' farm spanned Inlet Road. Grandma June also had a large vegetable garden, complete with a strawberry patch. She was not a committed gardener, and as the years passed, the strawberry runners ambled along, taking up space once reserved for vegetable staples. Soon, the garden was a mass of strawberry plants.

Because no berry could go to waste, we grandkids picked constantly, morning, noon and night. Our afternoon pickings included a snack break -- soft homemade sugar cookies and a glass of flat Pepsi (because Grandma always left the opened bottle on the counter and only drank it a tumbler at a time).

Most summer evenings, the entire family crowded onto Grandma's front steps in the shade of a massive oak. Grandma served bowls of steaming shortcake topped with crisp, sweet strawberries drowning in cold milk. Sometimes, we'd get a strawberry pie.

A few years ago, I planted 12 strawberry plants and coaxed a few jars of jam and one strawberry pie from them. Last year, I invited the neighborhood to pick. We couldn't keep up. The reward for all this garden work comes in a bowl of strawberry shortcake shared with family on the front porch. Summer traditions continue one berry at a time.

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-- Katie Pratt grows strawberries and writes and shares her love of agriculture from a north-central Illinois farm. Visit https://theillinoisfarmgirl.com/… to enjoy her writing blog.

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