Two years ago, I bought a bundle of a dozen strawberry plants at the We Sell Plants & Stuff Market next door to our little place here in Blair, Kansas. They were labelled “Everbearing.” I was suspicious that that label might be a bit misleading, being particularly skeptical that I’d be picking fresh strawberries in January. But I was willing to settle for May through September, which is what the everbearing plants we grew in Arkansas City had done.

I took these home, spaced a dozen holes alongside the old gray railroad ties that formed our little garden’s eastern border, and set the strawberries. I was pleasantly surprised that they actually bore a few berries that first season. One session of blooming and bearing and that was it.

“Oh, well,” I thought, “maybe it’s the second season before they become ‘everbearing.’”

Nope, wrong again. They did send out rooting shoots and pretty much doubled their own population. And they bore some fine berries in May of that second year. Then, they went about their non-bearing duties, sending out more shoots and rooting those.

This year, they have flourished rather well. That original dozen plants have propagated and populated the entire eastern edge of the garden, even encroaching into the onion and potatoes’ space. I haven’t counted but I estimate that we have at least six times as many plants as we started with. And they are bearing a fine crop of strawberries this year. I admit to a remote bit of regret and resentment about the mis-labelling that led me to my original purchase. I’d rather enjoy having a few months of fresh strawberries instead of just a few weeks.

I suppose I could dig up the whole batch of berry plants, take them back to Fleek’s and demand a refund.

But the more I keep eating these fresh strawberries, the less that idea appeals to me. It’s certainly not the first time in my life that having things turn out differently than I expected turned out to be better than I expected. In fact, there are times I’d swear somebody who knows more than me was actually working things out on my behalf. And frequently providing blessings even better than fresh strawberries.