June 12, 2011 in flowers, food styling
I seem to be obsessed with miniature plants and flowers at the moment and I photographed these little wild strawberries that I’ve been growing in my garden. Like my Forget-me-nots, these mini strawberry plants also came from my parents’ garden a few years ago. They grow happily everywhere, little off shoots creeping onto other bits of soil, the runners creating new plants where ever they touch.
My children love the little plants and tiny flowers and watch them closely from when they begin to flower in April and change from charming little flowers to these sweet little strawberries by May and June. They watch and learn about plants, without realising, and then harvest the tiny crop, eating them straight from the plant. When the children were really small they used to run out into the garden every morning and see if any had ripened overnight and nibble them up before the snails got to them. They are still intrigued by the mininess, the novelty of such a small version to the larger ones everybody knows.
This little vintage vase was given to me by my mother and is an absolute favourite of mine, I love the way it mimicks a little strawberry, it has a certain charm but also a graphic quality. The wonky plate it’s sitting on is one that I made by rolling out a handful of white, air-drying Das clay on a chopping board and then cutting the shape out with a sharp knife. I left it to dry and then sanded down the edges with an emery board to a smooth finish. The typed card in the background was bought at a most wonderful book shop in Notting Hill, Lutyens & Rubinstein.
The wild has been tamed in my tiny London garden with tiny strawberries loved by tiny children.
I love wild strawberries too! I sowed lots of seeds in Winter and yesterday I finally planted the seedlings in the garden. Your photos are charming!
charming is the word! we left just before the wild strawberries had ripened, they are tucked around our garden and we spot in them out on walks. my girls love to pop out to eat the berries we grow too, but this year the deer have browsed them mercilessly and there were none. i cannot really complain when we’ve had strawberries and cream nearly every day in canada! x
Hello!
What gorgeous photos. I love everything. I have never seen strawberries like this before. I long for strawberries of any description at the moment. Our recent terrible weather has made them very expensive!
Hugs, Stephie x
PS I have your book and I just love it! x
Thank you Constanca, Elisa, Stephie. Glad you like the photos! The wild strawberries are about the size of your little finger nail, they’re so dinky!
ah, these are the sweetest! I have fond memories of being a small child and having far to little patience to wait for the strawberries in the patch to ripen, so there I was gobbling up semi-ripened strawberries, never minding the sandy grit at all! I still love them (clean and ripe now) and so do my children. Thanks for the happy reminder Sania!