If you're a fruit lover like me, you need to pick your own strawberries this summer. Fresh strawberries picked right from the vine are sweeter and more delicious than any berry you could purchase at a grocery store. It’s unreal.
Last Friday, Ray and I headed out to the local farms in New Jersey in search of the sweet stuff. And boy, did we find it.
We picked 13 pounds of delicious, red strawberries. Guess how much we paid? Only $24! That’s almost $2 less per pound than what you would buy at your local grocery store. Talk about a sweet deal.
Here are some tips on how to have the best strawberry picking experience:
Call ahead
Ray and I had to try two different farms before we found a location that was open for picking. So, don’t go through the hassle of driving around, and call before you leave to confirm that they are open.
Bring your own container
Some farms charge you a little extra to use their containers, so bring your own. We cleaned out some old plastic flower pots, and they worked perfectly. Any type of cardboard or plastic bin would work fine as well.
Eat and pick
Ray’s best tip is “for every strawberry you pick, eat seven more.” While you’re out in the field filling up your bucket with strawberries, you can’t help but eat a few every now and then. And hey, they’re only weighing your container, not you. Shhhh.
Check the strawberry
Before you rip each strawberry off the vine, make sure that it’s completely ripe, free of holes, mold, and too much dirt. You don’t want to eat any bad strawberries!
Don’t wash them
When you get home, do not immediately wash all of the strawberries that you've picked. For some reason, the strawberries go bad faster if you do. Instead, wash them right before you are about to eat them.
Store carefully
Be careful to store your strawberries properly. You don’t want too many strawberries on top of each other because they might get crushed. Try to disperse them evenly throughout your containers.
Freeze them
We certainly cannot eat 13 pounds of strawberries all at once. So, freeze the strawberries that you aren’t going to eat within a few days. That way you can make them last longer. But, do not put the strawberries in the refrigerator, it makes them mold faster.
Local locations open for strawberry picking:
DeWolf’s U Pick Farm: (where we went)
58 W. Colliers Mill Rd.
New Egypt, NJ 08533
609-758-6288
Hallock’s U-Pick Farm:
38 Fischer Road
New Egypt, NJ 08533
609-758-8847
Specca Farms Pick Your Own:
870 Jacksonville-Mt. Holly Road
Bordentown, NJ 08505
609-267-4445
Find even more locations here.
Strawberries are best in early June. So, pick a date, a farm, and a friend. Then, get out there and pick some strawberries!
Also, Ray and I used a lot of our strawberries to make delicious strawberry margaritas.
Here’s the recipe:
Add:
1 pound (16 ounces) fresh strawberries
1 cup silver tequila
2/3 cup freshly-squeezed lime juice
1/4 cup Triple Sec (or any orange liqueur)
Lots of crushed ice
Then:
Blend until smooth.
Add salt to the rim and a strawberry as garnish.
Enjoy!