How could anyone hate strawberries, you might ask? I have an explanation for you. But first, yes, I'm going to have strawberries on Wednesday at 10:30. And from the looks of it it's going to be the best strawberry season in recent memory. It's been a rather dry spring, and strawberries, like us, do not appreciate too much rain. Something they do appreciate, however, is high levels of nitrogen. When the soil has enough nitrogen, strawberry plants are high yielding, resistant to disease, and are particularly delicious. The farmer I'm getting these strawberries from, Dylan from Clean Green Growers in Sellersville, is well aware of this, so he had his chickens run around the strawberry field all last summer before planting in the fall. This was very smart. Chicken manure is high in nitrogen. Now he (and we) are reaping the benefits. They're some of the best strawberries I've had: big, sweet, juicy, red all the way through. Certified organic of course (note that conventional strawberries are very heavily sprayed with lots of bad stuff). They'll be picked early Wednesday morning and brought over by 10:30. I'll probably get more fresh on Friday. Come as soon as you can.
Now, why do "I hate strawberries"? Well it's something similar to why the chocolate ice cream from Owowcow is called "I hate chocolate." When they first started they mixed their ice cream by hand, and when they added the chocolate it became very rich and difficult to mix. Everyone said they "hated chocolate" and so the name stuck. Strawberries are tough to harvest. They are low lying plants. The farmhands have to move quickly because there is so much of it, and 20 minutes after you take several hours worth of picking down to the roadside stand, they're sold out. So you have to pick more. The month of June at every farm I've worked at is nothing but picking strawberries for like 10 hours a day.
But that's not the real reason why strawberries are universally hated by farmhands. Picking strawberries, while it makes your back sore, is still sort of fun. I recall having strawberry food fights while picking. I recall rewarding myself with eating one strawberry for every quart I picked. I recall gently pushing fellow farmhands off their well balanced squats so that I'd get the upper hand in the strawberry picking race. And the weather is still beautiful and comfortable. The days are long, so bathing in the not-so-intense sun makes everyone happy. While it's hard, it's a good type of hard. I kinda miss it.
But the long days present a problem. Plants grow quickly when there is a lot of sun. That includes weeds. Weeds are easy to deal with when they're small. All it takes is some minimal soil disturbance with a hoe. But everyone is busy picking strawberries to deal with the weeds in that far off field of carrots, or potatoes, or cabbage, or beets, or peas. So the weeds grow tall to the point that the only solution is to get on your knees and hand pull. In July, no less, when it's hot. Some farmers have a better handle on weeds than others. I've experienced both types of farms. But when they don't you can bet that you'd hear farmhands in July comically muttering to themselves, "I hate strawberries" or "stupid strawberries." Weeds just aren't as fun to throw at one another as strawberries are.
You know after writing this I'm having the thought to tell this story to the folks at Owowcow to suggest that they make a chocolate strawberry ice cream. Though maybe that's too much hatred in a single container? haha