Buy Local

• Strawberries, like all fresh berries, are extremely perishable; that means they tend to spoil quickly. The less distance your berries have to cover before they get to you, the longer you'll be able to keep them. If you're not able to grow some yourself, buy them at producer-only farmers markets. These markets require the people selling food to be the the ones who grow it, and that lets you ask where the berries came from.

Keep Them Cold

• Despite that they're warm-weather fruits, once picked, strawberries don't like heat. If they get too warm, strawberries turn brown and lose vitamin C, reports the University of Illinois Extension. The university extension recommends putting berries in a bowl, covering with plastic wrap, and storing in the coldest part of your fridge.

Leave Them Alone

• Strawberries keep best in their natural state. If you cut them or remove the tops, you damage cell walls and give bacteria a way in. If you wash them right when you get them home -- rather than right before you're going to eat them -- you give moisture-loving mold a good place to grow. "Cook's Illustrated" magazine recommends keeping berries in a colander, so that juice and moisture can drain away.

Freeze Them

• Freezing is a good way to keep ripe summer berries fresh. When you freeze berries in a household freezer, large ice crystals form inside the cells, and berries are mushy when thawed. That isn't a problem if you want to use them for smoothies, but if you'd like firmer berries, celebrity chef Alton Brown recommends crushing dry ice and mixing it with the berries. Be careful not to touch dry ice with bare skin; it will give you frostbite.