It feels almost ungrateful to rip strawberry plants out of the ground mere days after they gave me gallons of fruits, but that's what I was doing last week.  We pull out the oldest plants (a third to half of our beds) at this time of year and put in new beds of rooted runners.  Some of these summer-planted strawberries succumb to the heat, but the ones that make it are hefty enough to bear a good (but not great) crop of fruits the next year.  These are the tastiest berries that I reserve for eating fresh, while the more copious fruits from the two year old plants are used to make strawberry shortcake, strawberry freezer jam, or strawberry leather.

I've just about gotten used to ripping out happy strawberry plants, but the strawberry demolition this year was even more serious.  I opted to remove all of our latest bearing variety (Jewel) and replace them with a new variety that I hope will taste better (All-Star.)  The mail order strawberries came in a very dormant state, so I hope they're able to deal with the summer garden.

Any angst I felt about pulling out such stalwart garden friends was relieved by the sheer joy the chickens took from picking through the plants in search of rotten berries.  At least someone enjoys those not-so-great Jewel strawberries!