Last weekend, Stick and I went out to pick strawberries. We ended up at Buckwheat Farm, where we filled a tray and our mouths with hot red berries. It was summer-day perfection. After half a tray, we started to get hot and sweaty, and the Nintendo games back home in the air-conditioning were starting to look better and better. We were about to pack up and go when we overheard that family next to us, who happened to have brought along the International Strawberry Expert.
The International Strawberry Expert scolded his kids for not picking carefully enough, for leaving properly-red berries on the vine, for failing to spread out, for letting pinkish berries get into the picking basket, for not treating the leaves with enough delicacy. Hilarious! (Unless, of course, your dad happens to be the International Strawberry Expert, in which case, it’s probably not so funny.)
We got home, still laughing over the International Strawberry Expert, and inspired by our day out in the country, we looked at our own potted plants. Contrary to expectations, Stick and I haven’t killed our plants yet. We have noticed a new flaw in our gardening plan. We’ve planted carrots, radishes and spring onions, mostly based on the belief that these will be easy to grow, but all three of our balcony-pot crops grow underground.
“How will we know when they’re radishes?” I asked Stick.
“Don’t they pop up over the soil?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well, they do on Harvest Moon!”
Hmm…. looks like a job for the an International Radish Expert!
