Strawberries

While searching for Spring Break activities online last night, I found a site that lists you-pick-it fruit and vegetable farms all across the United States. (http://www.pickyourown.org/ )  Just click on your state and then your area and it will give you a list of your local farms.

I was surprised to see one just ten minutes from our house.  I was even more surprised to see it was owned by someone I knew!  My husband had done work for him several years ago when we owned our own company.

We found Sledd's Strawberries and Produce at the end of a dirt road very close to the Indian River.  After being greeted by Mr Sledd and given strawberry picking instructions we set off into the field.

If you've never seen strawberries in their natural habitat, they're usually grown in mounded rows.  They begin as cute little flowers and you will see several stages of growth on one plant

The farm provided these handy PVC frames to hold the cardboard flats.  Each box will hold about 10 lbs of strawberries.

The strawberries were beautiful!

It only took walking two rows for my baby to fill our flat.



As my baby was carrying our harvest back to be weighed, she stopped to pick one more giant strawberry.

"Now it's ten pounds" she told me.  She must have inherited daddy's laser eyes.  When Mr Sledd weighed our strawberries, we had exactly ten pounds.  At $2 a pound, we got a great deal. 

We also bought a gallon of fresh squeezed Navel orange juice.  It's a hundred times better than anything you can buy in the store.

Now off to search for yummy recipes for all these strawberries.....

P.S.  If you're going to be in the North Brevard area,  you can contact Mr Sledd at ptsledd@bellsouth.net to see if he has any strawberries ready for picking.  Don't forget to pick up some juice and maybe some cabbage or onions.