This morning I was out in the garden before breakfast, walking around to see what had changed overnight, and I spotted them sitting there in the bed — four Earliglow strawberries, fully red, pointing up toward the sun. The first ones of 2026.
I picked them and ate two immediately, standing in the garden in my jacket with my breath still showing in the cold air. The other two made it inside. I put them on a plate and took a photo before my dad could eat them.
The first strawberries of the year always taste the best. I thought it was just excitement, but I think the cold really does make them sweeter.
This is the thing I have noticed about early spring strawberries: they are always the best ones of the year. Not the most plentiful — that comes in May when the whole patch is going at once. But the best tasting. The most intensely strawberry-flavored ones.
I think it is because of how they ripen. In late March here in Apex, NC, the nights are still cold — sometimes down into the upper 30s. That means the berries develop slowly. The plant takes its time. And slow ripening in cool weather lets the sugars build up differently than hot fast ripening in May does. The difference in flavor is genuinely noticeable, not just in my head.
Earliglow is the variety I grow specifically for these early berries. The name says it: it glows early. Most June-bearing strawberries do not ripen until late April or May in Zone 7b, but Earliglow consistently gives me fruit in late March and early April in a good year. That head start is worth everything to me.
After eating the four berries and walking back through the patch, I counted another twelve that are showing color and will be ready within a week. That is also the signal that the birds have figured out what is happening. I have seen the mockingbird sitting in the fence post above the bed twice this week, doing that suspicious looking-around thing they do before they land and steal something.
So today the bird netting went up. I have a set of wire hoops I made from heavy gauge wire that arch over the raised bed, and I drape deer netting over them and clip it at the bottom with clothespins. It is not beautiful but it is effective. The mockingbird can look at them from the fence as much as it wants.
Also noticed while walking the garden: the everbearing mulberry tree at the back of the yard has tiny green fruit already forming. They are hard and very small right now, maybe the size of a pencil eraser, but they are there. That means we are on track for the usual late May to June harvest. Last year we got more mulberries than we could use — we froze several bags and I still have some in the freezer. This year I am going to be even more prepared. The sheet is already clean and ready.