Strawberry picking

One of the pleasures of living in rural Virginia is that there are lots of opportunities to get fresh produce, direct from the farm.  During the growing season, there are also several farms in my area that offer a pick-your-own patch for various items.  What could be better than to go to the farm where your food is grown and then to harvest that food yourself?  It's a great educational opportunity for the kids (and for yourself!), as well as a wonderful way to support local growers!

Recently I went to Yoders' Farm, about 10 minutes from my house.  They specialize in hydroponic tomatoes, strawberries, and pumpkins.  In the spring, they offer a pick-your-own strawberry patch with hundreds of plants and gazillions of berries.  I took a few pictures from our excursion and thought I would share them with y'all!

My little girl is 4 this year, so she got to have her own basket to pick berries.  She did fairly well remembering to get the red berries and not the white/green ones!

My son just wanted to pick anything he could find!

The daughter's basket, with about a pound of berries.  Yum!

My basket, with about 18.5 pounds of berries, some not quite ripe, but that's OK with me :)

After I processed them, I ended up with 4 gallon-size bags almost full of berries.  Technically, you should lay them out on a sheet tray and freeze them before putting them in the bag, but I was tired of processing berries and took a shortcut.  If you do freeze them this way, be sure to get the liquid out as best you can.  Mine are now frozen in place where they sit in my freezer.  Hope the husband can un-stick them :P

I will hopefully be going back to other pick-your-own farms throughout the year and will do posts for them as well.  In June, the blueberry patch will open, September for apples, and October for pumpkins :)