Today is May 20th and on this day in history…
National Pick Strawberries Day falls on the calendar when spring has firmly taken hold, when the soil has warmed enough for these low-growing berries to blush red beneath their leafy crowns.
The strawberry fields bend with the contours of the earth. Rows stretching outward like the rings of time, each plant anchored in its place while we move between them, harvesting what they freely offer. People hunched in quiet concentration, fingers stained, backs warming under the May sun.
We’ve been doing this for ten thousand years – this exchange between human and plant. The strawberry evolved its sweetness not for us but to entice birds to scatter its seeds. We just happened to notice, to taste, to desire. And that desire changed both our paths.
Before agriculture, before civilization, humans gathered wild strawberries – tiny explosions of flavor hidden in forest edges. The Romans believed they eased depression. Medieval stone carvers placed them in cathedral corners as symbols of perfection. The native Pomo of California wove the plants into their creation stories.
There’s something humble about strawberry picking. Unlike harvesting wheat or corn – those grand, sweeping events that fill granaries and change landscapes – strawberry picking happens close to the ground, one berry at a time. You have to slow down. You have to look carefully. You have to decide which ones are ready and which need another day of sun.
The commercial fields of California produce 90% of America’s strawberries now. Machines and migrant hands have replaced the family outing. But small farms and backyard patches still exist where people kneel in the dirt and feel that ancient connection – the quiet satisfaction of gathering food directly, no intermediaries, no processing plants, no plastic packages.
In a world increasingly virtual, increasingly distant from its biological roots, there’s a grounding truth in the simplicity of picking strawberries. The juice on your fingers is real. The bend in your spine is real. The momentary hesitation before eating one straight from the plant – that’s real too.
National Pick Strawberries Day isn’t commemorating some grand historical moment. It’s marking something more fundamental – the ongoing, ever-present relationship between humans and the earth that feeds us. The history that matters most isn’t always found in textbooks. Sometimes it’s written in soil and seeds and red-stained fingers reaching toward the ground.
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