U-Pick - revisited

The past two years in Oregon we have enjoyed the U-Pick option for fruit and nuts. My earlier posts have covered our exploits in these areas. Two years ago we were able to purchase strawberries at a real good price from a stand at the end of the day. They were very ripe and perfect for the jam Sandra was going to make. Last year we missed out on the harvest as it was very short. This year we decided to go ahead and buy some berries from a roadside farmer's stand. They were Hood berries, smaller but extremely sweet and flavorful.
Well, we decided that the price was a bit higher than we wanted to pay for berries to cook down and can so Sandra decided that she wanted to try another U-Pick adventure. We located a farm about a 10 minute drive from the house and started out this morning loaded with empty boxes for our haul. When we arrived we noted that there were workers picking in one of the fields.
They were loading small buckets with berries and dumping them into large barrels.

They were "stripping" the plants of all mature berries, ripe or not. The filled barrels were then transported to a warehouse to await transport to a plant making jam and other strawberry products.
Well, enough of that, Sandra wanted to get down to business so we staked out a row and started picking. The plants were full, some berries already over-ripe. The plants grow close to the ground so you had to bend over or squat down to reach them.

After about an hour we had all had enough and decided that U-Pick was not the best way to get strawberries even if the price was about half that of already picked berries. We gathered about 18 pounds during that hour's time.

We were accompanied by some friends from Taiwan and their kids. The two girls really took to the picking, being very selective and only getting the perfect berries.
In fact they enjoyed it so much we are thinking about hosting a group of kids from Taiwan next summer to experience the joy of living in the Pacific Northwest.

Next come blueberries, blackberries, marion berries, raspberries, logan berries, and a lot of other goodies. Be patient, they're not ripe yet.