JULY 5, 2007 - Ah, the first berries of the season are ripe where we live. While I've bought some strawberries from the farmers market, I admit I left picking them myself until the last moment - well, perhaps there are a few days left in the Fraser Valley, a bit more in Delta if it was drier there the last week. The rot is setting in, scourge of the coast. Up north in Doreen, the strawberries are probably just coming on - and in California, long gone. They're probably eating oranges by now.
It's hard to find organic u-pick farms for strawberries, but I learned that Forstbauer, a biodynamic certified operation that often sells at the East Vancouver farmers market, was doing it, $2 a pound. What a great deal! So my pal Deborah and I loaded our plastic buckets in the ol' Colt and drove to Chilliwack. It was a perfect sunny day - though so hot, I couldn't bear to wear the long-sleeved shirt I brought . . . you can probably guess I got burned, most unexpectedly at the base of my back from the picker's stoop. Damn those low-rise jeans! Deborah got caught on that as well.
It was interesting to see the difference in the fields between this biodynamic place, and where I've picked in the past. Conventional farms have bare, pale, dusty earth between the rows. Here there was a carpet of grass, clover (Mary, the farmer, found a four-leaf one that she offered to give away), thistles and even a rogue blackberry cane. It looked like a much healthier natural environment.
Deborah kicks my butt picking blackberries, so I felt a little smug to weigh in two pounds above her, at nearly twenty pounds (though in classic farmgate fashion, they rounded down to sixteen). These were the best farm strawberries I've eaten yet - juicy, perfect glistening red, smaller than the supermarket monsters from California. Though plenty big enough for me.
After three hours in the hot sun, I was pooped out - hats off to farm labourers! But these were just enough berries for a year's worth of frozen, after eating our fill of them fresh. As the farm didn't have flats for sale, I pulled into a roadside stall I'd seen on the way there and bought maybe 5 pounds more, to make a small amount of jam to see me through til blackberry season. (They're my favourite because they're free.)
I started my first jam batch right away after I got home. Friends Ruben and Olive came over later to keep me company while I stirred and brought . . . strawberry rhubard crumble! They had been berry picking a few days before.
Now is the time for gorging, as the growing season hits its stride. At this moment it's strawberries and cream, cream and strawberries - local eating is hard work, but somebody's got to do it.-ADS
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JULY 5, 2007 - Ah, the first berries of the season are ripe where we live. While I've bought some strawberries from the farmers market, I admit I left picking them myself until the last moment - well, perhaps there are a few days left in the Fraser Valley, a bit more in Delta if it was drier there the last week. The rot is setting in, scourge of the coast. Up north in Doreen, the strawberries are probably just coming on - and in California, long gone. They're probably eating oranges by now.
It's hard to find organic u-pick farms for strawberries, but I learned that Forstbauer, a biodynamic certified operation that often sells at the East Vancouver farmers market, was doing it, $2 a pound. What a great deal! So my pal Deborah and I loaded our plastic buckets in the ol' Colt and drove to Chilliwack. It was a perfect sunny day - though so hot, I couldn't bear to wear the long-sleeved shirt I brought . . . you can probably guess I got burned, most unexpectedly at the base of my back from the picker's stoop. Damn those low-rise jeans! Deborah got caught on that as well.
It was interesting to see the difference in the fields between this biodynamic place, and where I've picked in the past. Conventional farms have bare, pale, dusty earth between the rows. Here there was a carpet of grass, clover (Mary, the farmer, found a four-leaf one that she offered to give away), thistles and even a rogue blackberry cane. It looked like a much healthier natural environment.
Deborah kicks my butt picking blackberries, so I felt a little smug to weigh in two pounds above her, at nearly twenty pounds (though in classic farmgate fashion, they rounded down to sixteen). These were the best farm strawberries I've eaten yet - juicy, perfect glistening red, smaller than the supermarket monsters from California. Though plenty big enough for me.
After three hours in the hot sun, I was pooped out - hats off to farm labourers! But these were just enough berries for a year's worth of frozen, after eating our fill of them fresh. As the farm didn't have flats for sale, I pulled into a roadside stall I'd seen on the way there and bought maybe 5 pounds more, to make a small amount of jam to see me through til blackberry season. (They're my favourite because they're free.)
I started my first jam batch right away after I got home. Friends Ruben and Olive came over later to keep me company while I stirred and brought . . . strawberry rhubard crumble! They had been berry picking a few days before.
Now is the time for gorging, as the growing season hits its stride. At this moment it's strawberries and cream, cream and strawberries - local eating is hard work, but somebody's got to do it.-ADS
