The idea for this image came from an e-mail conversation in which I asserted that the strawberries in my garden seemed bent on world domination, and then a conversation about that with dear Erik, my evil muse.

By the way, I got my strawberry patch by burying a couple of actual berries at the bottom of a particularly delicious basketful. The ones I interred were too far gone to eat, but since their brethren were so good, I wanted more. I figured each berry, freckled liberally with seeds, should be good for at least one plant, right? So I thought I'd see what would happen if I just, well, planted them. Whole.

I'll tell you what happened. Now, a few years after my experiment, I have enough plants to pick half a pint a day for a couple of weeks every summer, while still sharing my organic crop with several squirrels and many birds. My neighbor and I even dug about fifty plants out of my lawn, where the colony tends to spread. Those plants, which have already been replaced by new ones through no effort of my own, are now thriving next door -- and sending out runners...

This image is the sort that might adorn a seed packet, slightly less than 4¼" by slightly more than 5¾". This version is a JPEG designed for online viewing, 287 x 400 pixels in size. Because the original image was created digitally for process printing, it can be resized successfully to any proportional dimensions at a wide range of resolutions.

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