One Last Pick: Saying Goodbye to Strawberry Season

Hi friends,

In the offseason it’s easy to plan. Farming on paper. Numbers on a spreadsheet. A mental to-do list. A packet of tomato seeds, a few reused trays, bags of potting soil, some fertilizer, time on the tractor, get the field ready for planting, t-posts, twine…What starts out as a series of zeroes and ones, can fit into an envelope in the mail and slowly the scale grows exponentially. The present day farmer cannot go back and tell the brilliant planner sipping coffee on a cold winter day that he’s forgetting something. 

You can’t cut any corners farming. I mean you can, but you’ll usually pay for it one way or the other. “A stitch in time saves nine”. “Do it right the first time”. “How come you can’t afford to do it right but you can afford to do it over?” 

It’s been an amazing season so far. My first season. Let me say that agin. This is my first year doing pick your own. Above is a video of a song that I’ve been listening to a bunch this season, “All Together Now” by The Farm. The first 50 seconds of the song gets me. The feeling of accomplishment I’ve had so many times this season. Cars pulling into the parking lot. Kids laughing and screaming over Chester or the chickens or seeing a ripe strawberry. Full buckets of red at checkout. We did it. 

It’s time to say goodbye to the strawberries. As a father to these roughly 8000 plants, it’s been a ride. I planted every single one by hand. I gave them food when they were hungry and water when thirsty. Covered them with blankets during the dark cold nights of winter. Scheduled Doctor appointments (with the agronomist) to make sure they were healthy. Cared for them in every way imaginable. It’s time to release them to the wild. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Father’s Day than to have you out to the farm for one last pick. Let’s pick these plants clean of all ripe berries so they can pass on to the good place free of all their riches. As the saying goes, “You can’t take it with you.”

This Saturday June 14th pick one bucket get the second bucket for half off. Deals all around. Other items for sale and picking include cherry tomatoes, snapdragons, basil, all of our plants, and limited blackberries and blueberries.

Your farmer,

David Heeks

P.S. We started picking blackberries and blueberries this past week. They are both at the beginning of the season. More and more are ripening every day.  

P.P.S. If you want to take home a strawberry plant from Heeks Farm to plant in your own garden we will be selling those as well. You dig!