Short but Sweet

Today was our last berry day of the season. This season flew by for me. From the day we opened to even today, so many came out to get a bit of berry sweetness. Some were in it to win the best customer award and others were just finding us for the first time. I met people from Jasper, Huntingburg, Tell City, and even Owensboro. It was definitely our best season to date. And while I am the face of the patch, I couldn’t have this little business if not for some wonderful people behind the scenes.

A shout out to my husband, Nick. He’s the one who does anything requiring a tractor. It’s not a skill I have fine tuned yet, although it is an aspiration to master. He’s usually busy with other farm tasks during picking season but is definitely the most important person to making things work!

Second, my father in law, Melvin. Also one I turn to frequently for help with planting, maintenance, and this year, took off work early to rock the parking area after 1.8 inches of rain made it a bit slick.

We have two young daughters whose attention span for the patch lasts from about 5 days to 2 weeks. They are supportive, the biggest cheerleaders for the patch, and mostly don’t complain about erratic dinner times and Stouffer’s lasagna. When they do tire of it all, Nancy, my mother in law, is always available to keep them entertained (and fed). It won’t be too many years until they are recruited to the final group - my picking crew.

I meant to get pictures of each of my picking crew members and post so you could see their smiling faces, but in the thick of the day, my camera just adorned the table in the shed. I had a crew of over 20 kids this summer - some veteran pickers (several seniors who graduated and I will miss terribly) and some new faces. To say I am blessed to have these kids work for me is an understatement. They come in before the dew is off, pick in wet, hot, humid, and occasionally pleasant conditions. They have stayed hours later than I have asked and have smiled and said “sure” when I ask if they can do “just one more flat?” To Sydney, Ingrid, Liz, Claire, Tyler, Molly, Hayden, Owen, Elliot, Emma, Ellie, Ella, Jenna, Grace, Karlie, Madison, Shelby, Jake, Becky, Mariah, Jack, Luke, Xia, and Lexi, THANK YOU. You all did a wonderful job…and I’m sure my constant “don’t bring me orange ones, leave the caps on but take stems off, watch the bug holes and soft spots!” makes you roll your eyes when I’m not looking. You’re the best! Awesome! and you deserve all the accolades! All the compliments of “beautiful berries”, “not a bad one in the box” … those are for you guys! You worked hard this season. Good job, crew!

With that, we say good-night to the berry patch! We have plans to make 2020 even bigger and better with 4 new beds in addition to the beds we will carry over. We are trying a new, later variety (as well as several tried and true ones) that will hopefully extend our season by a week so we can provide the summer sweetness of strawberries just a few days more!

What’s next? More summer deliciousness! Coming soon: sugar snap peas, green beans, okra, squash (yellow, zucchini, patty pan), acorn squash and spaghetti squash (fall), cucumbers, and eggplant… and more blog posts about our adventures because there never really is a dull moment around here!

A pretty picture of some of the berry sweetness of 2019.

An improvement for 2019 was adding gravel to the parking area. We have found that customers enjoy their experience more if they don’t fear their car will get stuck in the mud after a rain.