The pick-your-own season has started in Connecticut, and the strawberries are ripe for the picking. Despite the severe weather this winter, the dry, hot spring and heavy rains, growers say the strawberry crop hasn’t suffered. The fruit appears to be large and already ripening across the state.
“All the plants came through the winter in pretty good shape,” said John Lyman of Lyman Orchards in Middlefield. “The heavy snowfall was actually very good, it acts as a blanket from the real cold temperatures.”
Snow cover insulated plants and the melt-off was an important first source of water for spring and summer crops, said Commissioner Steven Reviczky of the Department of Agriculture. This year Connecticut had the perfect weather combination for strawberries — an above average snowfall and a very slow melt-off.
Although this caused a late start to the season, the consistent warm weather in April and May allowed the first round of strawberry plants to avoid any spring frosts and even to ripen a little early, Lyman said. The lack of rain this spring, however, posed more of a concern for the berries.
“Where we could irrigate we were OK,” Lyman said, “but we don’t have irrigation on raspberries and only some on blueberries. This rain will really help them recover.”
Many farmers, like Lyman, were forced to irrigate their crops this spring before the rains.
“The rain came slow and steady and soaked in the ground,” Reviczky said. “New England is an amazing place when it comes to weather. There are always challenges. But the snow, the hot spell and the good dose of rain all came together and things are turning out really nicely.”
Lyman picked his first strawberries this past Sunday and opened his orchards to the public June 3. The raspberries, typically the next fruit to ripen, are expected to be ready by the last weeks of June and blueberries will follow around July 4, Lyman said. All these fruits have short seasons, three to six weeks, so it is important to get out into the fields at the start.
Lyman’s will host its annual Strawberry Festival Saturday June 13 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Although it is too early to know exactly when the first tree fruits — apples, pears and peaches — will ripen, Lyman said that the bloom was especially heavy this year and he is hoping for a good crop of each.
For a list of farms offering pick-your-own fruits and vegetables, visit ct.gov/doag/ or pickyourown.org/CT.
