Sydney Taber of Unity and her grown daughter, Jaime Taber of Worcester, Massachusetts, moved through the rows at Raven’s Berry Farm in Freedom with one ambition: to fill their containers with the sweetest, plumpest, most delicious strawberries they could find.
“There’s just something about picking berries,” Jaime Taber, wearing a floppy hat to cover her face from the sun, said. “I love the berries.”
[What you can do today to enjoy the summer harvest all year long]
That’s a thought echoed by many around the state this year, as the first pick-your-own fruit season of the year brings families, home cooks and other strawberry fiends out to farms all over Maine to score the best berries they can find. But one traditional pick-your-own location where generations of Mainers have sought out strawberries evidently will not be open this summer: Tate’s Strawberry Farm in East Corinth. Efforts to speak with a Tate’s official from that farm were not immediately successful.
[Recipe: Strawberry rhubarb pie]
“We will be unable to open for u-pick this year due to root problems,” a message posted Tuesday morning on the farm’s Facebook page read. “We will be selling from our roadside stand in Brewer. We will be posting on here the days that we go to Brewer.”
That large strawberry farm is run by Albert Tate, who purchased it after his parents, Ken and Bev Tate, decided to retire. But the elder Tates could not give up strawberries altogether and are running Ken and Bev’s Strawberry Patch, a much smaller operation on Hudson Road in Corinth that is open every morning to strawberry pickers.
“It’s wonderful picking,” Bev Tate said Wednesday morning.
[Where to pick your own strawberries in Maine during summer 2017]
The closure of the large pick-your-own strawberry mainstay may be one reason that Treworgy Family Orchards in Levant has been very busy since opening last week. The farm first began doing pick-your-own strawberries last year.
[Recipe: Small batch strawberry rhubarb jam]
“We see many people coming to our farm, bringing the old Ken and Bev Tate strawberry flats with them,” Jonathan Kenerson, the CEO of Treworgy Family Orchards, said. “It’s certainly been a staple.”
He said demand for pick-your-own strawberries has been very strong at the Levant farm. Last year, customers would consistently pick them out within hours, so the farm doubled its strawberry acreage this year to one full acre, but it still hasn’t proved to be enough. Customers are picking them out even earlier than before, Kenerson said, adding that the farm is going to more than double its strawberry acreage again for next year. He and others from Treworgy are enjoying seeing families in their fields picking strawberries and are aiming to give customers a good experience.
“Our whole vision is to help people reconnect with the land,” Kenerson said.
Overall, it should be a good season in Maine for the sweet fruit, according to University of Maine strawberry specialist David Handley. The cool spring weather this year has slowed down the start of the strawberry season around Maine, he said, but it hasn’t affected the yield or the quality of the fruit.
“We’re kind of unique [in the country] that our strawberry season matches so well with the start of summer and the Fourth of July holiday,” he said. “I think we’ll have a really good crop of strawberries for the Fourth of July.”
Handley encouraged all pick-your-own fans in Maine to always call ahead to the farm and find out what their hours and conditions are.
“If the hot weather does come, things will ripen very quickly,” he said. “I think the next two weekends are where the peak of the crop will be.”