If you’re itching to get out and pick some wild berries this year, I have good news for you: the strawberries are in. They won’t be for long and they won’t offer the volume of picking as later berries, but they’re still worth pursuing.

It’s my opinion that wild strawberries are a good way to get kids interested in foraging, or at least engage them in conversation about where food comes from. For one thing, wild strawberries are very tasty; they’re typical of wild berries in that they’re smaller but have much more flavor than their cultivated counterparts. Another reason is that most any kid should recognize a wild strawberry as something they already know as food, and putting that berry in their mouth directly from the plant is a special way to connect with the natural world.