In this episode, I share my favorite tips to help you get the most out of and have the best u-pick strawberry experience. Picking your own fruit is not only a great way to save money but also connect you with your local growers and is a great learning experience for young and old alike.
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You can listen to this podcast episode below or listen on any of these podcast players - Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts. If you would prefer to read the text, you will find a transcript below.
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This episode featured a guest appearance by Tara Smithson from Simply Made Eats.
Eric: Appearing for the first time on my podcast, I am here with giving you my best tips for when you head to a u-pick strawberry farm. One of my favorite things to do with my family each year is to pick our own fruit. We kick off the year with strawberries as they are the first fruit to ripen. Later in the year we may pick cherries, blueberries, peaches, and apples.
If you have never gone picking before or you do go each year I think you are going to find the tips I am giving today to be helpful.
There are two different types of strawberries grown - ever-bearing and June-bearing. For this episode I am going to be talking about the June-bearing strawberries. This is what you will find at most u-pick strawberry patches especially if you live in the Midwest, New England, mid-Atlantic states, etc.
If your local strawberry farm offers strawberries for a short season of around 3 weeks, then most likely they are growing June-bearing plants. The good thing about them is that they produce a lot of berries, but they only do so at once, so the harvest is short.
If your local strawberry farm has a Facebook or Instagram page make sure you are following that. Definitely sign up if they do an email newsletter. The season is so short and often places will run out of berries for a day or may stop picking in the afternoon if they were slammed in the morning.
Never go on the first day. Farms are usually busy and often will sell out the fist day, Plus it's usually not when they have their biggest harvest. I usually aim for about a week or so into the season. I also don't like to go right after a heavy rain as you end up with fruit that may be larger in size but often smaller in flavor. Sometimes that simply can't be helped, so don't sweat if the only time you can go is after a rain. The berries will still be better than what you get at the grocery store.
Have your ideas of what you want to do with the fruit before you go. Do you have supplies for making jam or pies? Do you have space in the fridge to store them?
🍓 Check out our recipe for Strawberry Vanilla Freezer Jam. It uses real vanilla beans!
When picking making sure you look underneath the plants well. You often find good berries hiding the middle. I recommend bringing a kneeling pad with you as well. It's easy to hurt your back from picking. I find that kneeling is easier for me and I can search the plants for berries better than just bending over.
I prefer picking at farms that use a flag system. That is they mark the beginning of a row and have you move the flag to the spot where you stopped picking. I find that I pick much faster at those farms since it's not a free for all searching for the best spot. I use to drive a little further to a different strawberry farm just because they had this system and it made picking a lot easier.
While this isn't required, try to see if you can find out what variety of strawberry you are picking. You can ask when you arrive. Often farms will grow a few different varieties that ripen around the same time. You can then discover if you like a certain variety over another to pick more of those in future years.
Now for a moment. I want to turn it over to a friend and fellow food blogger, Tara. Who also loves picking strawberries and wants to share. With you her new strawberry recipe taken away, Tara.
✍️ Guest Blogger
Tara: Hello everyone. Eric, thanks so much for having me. I'm Tara Smithson, the food Blogger Behind Simply Made Eats where I specialize in quick and easy recipes designed for really busy people like all of us. I live in North Carolina and I get so excited every spring when it's time to pick strawberries.
It's really important to support the farmers who grow the food that we eat, and it's even more important to support the farmers in our own backyards. Who are allowing us not only to visit their farms, but also to pick their produce. This is a great activity to do with the kids, to teach them what goes into the process behind all the food we eat.
It's also the freshest strawberries you can possibly get. I was able to pick a giant bucket of strawberries recently, and I developed a recipe for a strawberry compote, which is a really simple and delicious strawberry sauce. That goes great over waffles, pancakes, and ice cream. I highly suggest you check it out.
Eric: Thanks, Tara
I hope these tips will help you enjoy picking your own strawberries. It's a fun experience to do with the kids and you get the freshest fruit for often a better price than the grocery store.
If you enjoyed this episode and want me to do more like this one, please let me know by emailing me at [email protected] or commenting on this page.
🍓 My 2 favorite berry farms I have picked at are: Whittaker's Berry Farm (Ida, Michigan) and Carandale Fruit Farm (Oregon, WI)
✔️ Summary
Let me summarize all the tips from this episode:
- If the farm grows June-bearing strawberries, the season may be as short as 3 week so you need to not delay in picking.
- But if you can help it, don't pick right after a rain.
- Sign up for emails from your local farm if they do that. Also look for their social media pages.
- Plan what you want to make before you go picking.
- Find a farm that uses the "flag system".
- Ask what variety of strawberry you are picking.
- Have fun!
🍽️ Recipes
Here are some strawberry recipes you should try out:
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