If you haven't tasted a wild strawberry before, this year might be the year for taking a walk on the berry's wild side. Wild strawberries are hard to come by these days but are well worth seeking out. As kitchen garden writer extraordinaire, Barbara Damrosch, explains in her latest column for the Washington Post, these berries, while small in size and yield, pack big flavor and satisfaction.

"The alpine species, Fragaria vesca , is a bit plumper and more elongated than some other wild types, but still a far cry from the modern strawberry, which was bred in 18th-century Europe by crossing the American wild strawberry with a Chilean one. The alpines' lower chromosome count makes them difficult to cross with anything. As a result, their flavor has never been sacrificed to size. They barely exist outside the magic kingdom of the home garden, a place where delicious crops can be grown that make no sense anywhere else."

In addition to their sweet "true strawberry" flavor, many of the wild versions have the added advantage of being easy to maintain. Anyone who's planted strawberries before know that most so-called improved strawberry varieties have imperial aspirations. Leave them on their own for a while and they will happily invade and conquer their garden neighbors. Think of wild strawberries as the Lichtenstein or Andorra of gardening geopolitics: small, friendly and peaceful. A fitting fruit for our troubled times.