When?  When will those berries turn red?  You can't wonder more than we do.    When will the rain that has been blessedly pouring down enter the strawberry cells and swell them to juicy plumpness?  When will be that magic moment when just enough heat units have warmed the berries to cause them to change color and develop that deep sweetness we are longing for?

For the first time in 4 years, we haven't had a late frost, and so we'll get to taste the early season fruits.  Even I can hardly remember what an Annapolis or Sable taste like.  I've become more familiar with the wine-sweet Cavendish, a mid-season berry, and the peach-sweet Winona, a late-season berry.  Any day now, I'll get to taste the early season berries.  

For the first time in 4 years, we haven't had an infestation of thrips, a nasty bug that destroys our strawberry blossoms.  The pessimist in me wonders what nature will hurl at us next, since we've managed to dodge the frost and the thrips.  What challenges will this harvest bring? 

Then, there's the baby.  He's a blessing and a delight, but will I be able to keep nursing him throughout the busy strawberry season?  Nursing is such a pleasure and a joy.  It represents for me everything about eating local that I treasure.  No packaging.  No carbon foot print.  No preservatives or additives.  A relational activity rather than an impersonal one.  Everything that we want our farm to be for every person who drives into the yard.  

Which brings me back to that question -- when will you be driving into our yard? 

Hello all you strawberry lovers!  Hasn't it been a wonderful spring?  The sunshine and timely rains have been just splendid here on the strawberry farm.  I took a walk through the fields this morning and was astonished to see thousands, if not millions, of blossoms and green berries.  There were even green berries the size of a dime.  Just for some perspective, I pulled up my records for our years of strawberry growing:

Year	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Start Date	June 1	June 7	June 14	June 17	June 17	June 19	June 16	June 5	June 16	June 27	June 19	June 9	June 20

Do you think we'll match or beat 1999's start date of June 1?  Right now, it looks very possible.

That means we'll get to welcome many of you to our farm very soon.  Yes -- our farm! Dan and I bought it this spring.   Our children think they've moved to heaven on earth, and I'm just about ready to agree with them.  The flower gardens are growing, there are five new baby kitties, four ducks waddle around eating the weeds for us, and the Banty chickens strut around the yard as if they own it.  Are you as excited to come as we are to greet you? 

We would love for you to pass on this message of welcome to others on your e-mail list.

Looking forward to seeing you soon,

Sarah

Summer sunshine on the land

Summer sunshine is such a blessing to everyone, but particularly to those who are tied to the land.  Today, the strawberries were fairly bursting with juices and sweetness as they celebrated the sun and the shot of rain they received Friday night.  Weather conditions for the next week look like wonderful growing conditions, so we anticipate that it will be our best week for picking strawberries.  Our late-season varieties just ripened, so a lot of our field is now available for harvest.

The entire field gets a rest on Sunday, so Monday, the 4th of July, you can come on out with the family and make some memories in the patch.  Bring your camera, and bring your own containers to help save the environment! We'll stay open as long as we can -- hopefully the entire day.  Feel free to call and make sure we still have available rows before driving out if you can't come before noon.   We will close when we are sold out. 

Please check our website or Facebook Monday evening to see what we'll do on Tuesday.  You may still place orders for pre-picked berries any day next week. 

If you get a chance, check out some of the low-sugar preserves I've made.  I had some fun experimenting with different recipes, and using my neighbours as taste-testers.  I have strawberry-rhubarb, strawberry-kiwi, strawberry-orange, strawberry-peach, strawberry-jalapeno, pure strawberry and pure raspberry.  They're all fabulous!  Some are spiced up with either ginger or cinnamon.  It was fun to make these! All my preserves are made with Pomona's Universal Pectin.  This pectin uses far less sugar than either Sure-Jell or Sure-Jell light, since it gels the fruit with calcium instead of sugar.  I also include a nifty white lid with the jar, so that you can discard the canning seal and use the white lid in the fridge. 

Have a great 4th of July weekend, and thank-you all so much for your interest in our strawberries!

The Sun Will Come Out...Tomorrow!

It was so great yesterday with the family at the farm.  We had several orders that I sort of "lost" and all had to be picked frantically before the people drove up the driveway.  For three hours the entire family right down to the five year old worked as a team picking and sorting, and then when the last of the orders was filled, we all collapsed in the house.  What a great thing to do together. 

The 15 year old  told me he plans to go back to Haiti next year.  I'm really glad! He's such a neat kid.  He just picked up a new lawn-mowing contract; for the church! He is a busy boy.  Friday, I gave him a new responsibility.  He is now our 'field manager'.  This means that it is up to him to decide each day where to put U-pickers and pre-pickers, and through-out the mornings make all the little decisions about placing people in rows.  It is such great leadership and management training.  I'm so grateful for the opportunities that having a family farm provides.

Tomorrow is our first day of U-picking.  There is a chance of severe weather, including hail, tonight.  We shall pray for protection, and remember to bless the Lord no matter what comes.  After that, it looks like the weather will finally pull out of this gloomy, wet pattern and break into beautiful summer sunshine. 

De-blossoming

Many people ask why we replant every year...well, it's those pesky weeds.  No matter how much time we spend out in the field pulling them, after two or three years the thistles and dandelions start to overpower the strawberry plants.  Each year, we plant a section of new strawberry plants so that a replacement will be ready for the section we have to plow under.   It is fairly easy to plant the new plants, but it is time consuming to take care of them.  They need a lot of watering, weeding, and de-blossoming.  In their first year, we want the plant to put its' energy into growing runners instead of fruit, so every week in June and July we walk through the new plants and snip off the blossoms.  Sometimes, we find a ripe fruit from a blossom missed earlier, and then it is a sweet treat in our work routine.   The children are a great help in de-blossoming -- I think it is easier for them than for me, because they are closer to the ground:)

Strawberry Blossom in early June

Hello all you lovers of locally-grown, super-sweet, Minnesota Grown strawberries and raspberries.  Our fields are thick with white blossoms, reaching up for the blessed sunshine, while the roots are glorying in all the moisture they received this spring.  Last week was a fabulous week out in the field, and the pollinators were having a blast.  What's amazing to us is how many varieties are blossoming all at once with the recent heat.  Instead of a long, six week harvest drawn out by the cool weather of last summer, this crop may go fast and furious.  Farming is always so interesting! 

 

You can get excited to taste our Annapolis and Sable varieties this season.  Their blossoms were nipped by a late frost last year, and we ended up with only a few flats of them.  This year, their queen berries promise to be both luscious and enormous.  Those of you who come the first week of strawberries will likely get a delightful flat of one of these, though the faithful Cavendish are also blooming thickly, and instead of being a week behind the Annapolis, may only follow them by a day or two.   Think of all the different kinds of apples you've experienced -- there are just as many strawberry varieties, with a fantastic range of flavors.  It's such fun.

Baby chicks

It's a first for us. I used to think that chicks arrived in a store in the spring, to be bought and carried home. This year, our cantankerous old rooster must have been busy. My husband and son took some of the colored eggs from the hens and stuck them in an incubator, just to see if any would hatch. Well, we're 4 for 4 so far! Check out the wet look of a newly hatched chick. Then, ask yourself this: if you are heading to a doctor's app't., do you allow the children to put their books away and play with the chicks while you are gone, or do you make them finish their math pages? Which is more educational?