Sweet year for strawberries

Posted By Angela Brown, Central Plains Herald Leader

Posted 5 months ago

Staff photo by Angela Brown...Shea Doherty is pictured at his Our Farm producer vendor stall at the Portage la Prairie Farmers' Market in Heritage Square on Wednesday. Doherty found his strawberry crop this year to be a sweet surprise.

They've been a little bit smaller, but oh so much sweeter.

All in all, the strawberries from this year's crop have been keepers, says at least one local strawberry producer.

Shea Doherty, a supervisor/manager of Our Farm, located south of Highway 331, finished up the last of this year's crop 1 1/2 weeks ago (around Aug. 3), and put his final batch of berries out for sale at Portage la Prairie's Farmer's Market on Aug. 12. His family produces four hectares (10 acres) of strawberries.

He said although many growers in the Portage area experienced a large amount of rain over the summer, surprisingly, his property was just outside of the wet zone, per se, and managed without dealing with excessive moisture concerns. The farm only received rains about once a week on average.

"For us, it was good," said Doherty on Aug. 13. "There was lots of berries. They were a little smaller, but they were really sweet this year."

The local producer noted while the cooler weather this summer caused his strawberries to be smaller in size, it helped the taste of the fruit to become quite sweet. He said the higher sugar content was also good for consumers.

"There is less sugar (to add) into your jams and better vitamins for your body," he said.

Doherty noted in the summer of 2008, his farm had a bumper crop with a higher yield compared to this year, with larger strawberries. This year, he said the summer crop was average, but not spectacular, and the yield was a little bit smaller.

"The spring was very cool," he said. "Plants didn't come up from two to three weeks when they usually do."

As the season has wrapped up now, Doherty commented he was generally pleased with the results of the crop, and said while the berries were a little different than usual, they were still popular sellers.

"Some still wanted the large berry, but they were understanding," added Doherty.

Our Farm started harvesting strawberries this year in mid-July.

Doherty commented as the season ran later this year, Our Farm appeared to be one of the last growers that still had strawberries for sale at Portage's Farmer's Market in mid-August.

"I (searched) through my field and just picked the good berries and sold those at the market," he said.

Greg Makarchuk, owner of Makarchuk Strawberries, which is located about eight kilometres east of Portage la Prairie on Highway 331, said the crop this year was favourable.

"We had a really good season ," he said. "It ended up being really good. I'm really happy."

He said despite the late start he was able to continue picking for about three weeks, which is about average for his farm. The local producer said the final day he was able to pick berries at his farm was Aug. 1, which is unusually late for final picking.

"The cool weather helped the berries grow a little bigger in size and they were really sweet," Makarchuk added. "They were very plentiful. Ours were average to big (in size), but we had a lot of people complimenting us on how sweet they were this year."

abrown@cpheraldleader.com