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There is nothing like knowing where your food comes from or the gratifying feeling of picking it yourself (at least for me, my boss would say “I’d rather buy it or have it delivered). But I just love picking strawberries! This annual May ritual has evolved and changed a bit over the years but it’s still fun all the same.
Once upon a time the experience was one of rural country farms, rows upon rows of wirery strawberry plants, aisles covered with straw and smashed berries from the last pickers that had been by. You and your Mom in floppy hats and some trusty buckets you brought from home. The task was fun as we rooted through the thick plants to find the “perfect†berries (sampling every other one to make sure they are just right).
Jeans stained with green and red juices were merely just to price one paid for this natural experience of being a treasure hunter searching for the bounty of ruby red treasure to be put in the freezer and enjoyed well into winter when summer days are just a memory.
But now here in 2010 the experience has changed ever so slightly but just as much fun and the bounty just as delicious. We will be heading to Scott’s Strawberry Farm in Bedford County this Friday (5234 Joppa Mill Rd Moneta Virginia) for the first pick of the year.
This wonderful little berry farm, has very much the experience from my childhood, not as rural and much more a structured experience but very memorable all the same. The rows are much more groomed in this modern agriculture, the process more prearranged. The farmers obviously thought through this “picking process†for efficiency for them and for the picker. Upon arrival you “check in†with the friendly farm greeter. You are given several small flags, containers for the berries, and then you are walked out to your “picking location.”
Unlike the days when my brother and I would randomly run amuck through the fields you are assigned a location where you are to start and stop picking marked with the flags. Now this obviously a benefit since no one else had picked there that day and the famer assures a bigger yield for their buyer…but some of the excitement of the experience is lost in this limited location process as you gaze upon rows and rows of strawberries and are limited to only two. And the days of spending hours looking for the “best†untapped spots are now gone. But on a positive note you can be in and out of there in ½ hr with all the strawberries your little heart desires.
on Oakley Ave Appomattox VA last year. That strawberry picking venture was also similarly very structured but I found the whole experience fast and clean and a great price for my 10 lbs of strawberries, so no complaints here.
I would recommend both of these great little farms if you’re looking for a location to pick this year. Worth mentioning, Scott’s Farm in Moneta has a lovely annual Strawberry Festival with, food, rides, music and of course STRAWBERRY EVERYTHING.
Laurie Gulluscio, Retail Merchants Association of Lynchburg
My favorite date day with my husband is a planned Saturday morning downtown.
Don’t linger around your house drinking coffee on a lovely sunny morning in Lynchburg! If you do, you’ll be missing out on something that NO big city or destination location has… an easily accessible, quaint, enjoyable morning spent in downtown Lynchburg.
First you need to go early. Remember the farmers get there early and so should you. Not only is the morning just lovely with the coolness of the dew not yet overpowered by the hot sun of summer that is due to arrive around 11am, it’s just an atmosphere perfect for this “field trip†let’s call it.
We greet the farmers and ogle at all the produce that’s available, everything imaginable, at this point you start envisioning your grandmothers kitchen with counter tops of hot jars ready and waiting a variety of vegetables, hot baths for jars, salts and spices, even though you might currently live in a two bedroom apartment something nostalgic comes over you when your around all this fresh produce.
Breakfast is made up of everything temping a breakfast can offer, breads, coffee, cornbread, pudding, pies, cakes, eggs and bacon, everything wonderful. Now, take your coffee and make sure you get a cup with a lid…and head down the street, since you’ve seen all the produce your now inspired that you ARE secretly a farmer and that you should be tilling soil of some kind, even if it’s a pot on your balcony or a dug up front lawn.
The Farmers Seed and Feed is a great store for that, you feel like you’ve stepped back in a very different time in Lynchburg…this fabulous long standing building is a Lynchburg gem.
