Strawberries have been slowly (I mean slowwwlyyy) ripening. They have been suffering from a major lack of sunlight and heat. And all the rain has not helped either.
Many customers have asked us over the past couple of weeks if we were picking any berries yet, and our response has been, “No. And we’re glad they’re not ready yet!” Sounds crazy, I know. But here is why.
Strawberries do not like wet and cloudy weather. The sweetness of a strawberry is directly related to how much sunlight there is while it is ripening. If the berry is ripening during cloudy rainy days, it will be pumped up with a lot of water and not much sugar, so the flavor will be lackluster. Also, the rain and cloudiness cause lots of disease problems with strawberries, especially grey mold (also known as Botrytis). And water saturated strawberries tend not to store very long once they are picked. So you can see why we were glad not to be picking strawberries during that three week period of clouds and rain.
So far, the strawberries we have picked look shiny and bright, have very little grey mold, and have good flavor. And after this week’s ideal growing conditions (warm sunny days), their quality will only improve. So even though Mother Nature was not kind to growers during the early part of the strawberry season, we’re hoping that you’ll give strawberries another chance during the late season – because our crop of berries looks to be high quality and flavorful!
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