A Writing Challenge

Improve Your Health and Dining Experience with Fresh, Tasty Berries Straight from the Farm

Freshly picked berries taste better than store bought & cost half as much

This article is a complete rewrite and stands on its own merits; Resulting from a challenge posed in a story by Matt Lillywhite It is the After of a Before/After and, unlisted, not set up for payment.

Everything tastes better the day you pick it. My earliest memory occurred when I was 3 or 4, pre-kindergarten. My little red wagon was full of large, ripe tomatoes. They tasted great and I miss them.

Store tomatoes are usually picked almost green, then turn red. They don’t taste the same and neither do the store berries.

Last year, we discovered Back Road Berries, a you-pick farm near our house.

Berries are usually available about 7 months of the year. You can pick your own fruit or buy pre-picked for a bit higher price. I am pretty lazy. I always purchase pre-picked if it is available.

The farm is popular. When I arrived, the entire parking lot was full. I had to race someone to park in the next-to-the-last spot near the stand.

The farm has strawberries, blueberries and blackberries, each with their own season, although they do overlap some.

Not all berries are the same. If you count carbs for medical or other reasons, strawberries are 8% vs. 12% for blackberries vs. 14% for blueberries. In other words, 16 oz. (1 pound) of strawberries = 10 2/3 oz. of blackberries = 9 oz. of blueberries, sugar-wise.

That’s important for diabetics. Berries can easily be added or subtracted as needed, based on a blood-sugar test.

Berries provide the body with many health benefits. There are numerous articles on the internet, such as Antioxidant Berries and Macular Degeneration, describing the medical benefits of eating more berries.

Blackberries The farm did not have their usual pre-picked berries. I was forced to pick my own. I was reluctant, based on prior experience, even though the price was lower.

I had reason to be. My blackberry patch in Indiana was a glob of intertwined branches covered with at least 10,000 thorns. We rarely picked any since the berries were in the middle and hard to reach through the thorns.

My wife lived in Georgia before we met. She picked free berries along the road. To avoid being scratched, she put old nylon stockings on her arms.

Both were wild berries

The farm’s plants, staked in nice, neat rows, are 6-feet tall and without thorns, as you can see in the left-hand picture at the top. The rows were 12 to 18 inches thick and not tightly packed, so I could easily reach berries from either side.

Blackberries go from green to red to dark purple as they ripen. Don’t be fooled by almost ripe berries. They are still slightly sour, unlike the sweet, ripe berries. Ripe berries come off easy while almost ripe berries have to be pulled pretty hard.

Even though many people were picking, we still had plenty.

Some farm berries were huge, like ping pong balls, while wild berries are the size of small marbles. I was forced to restrain myself from picking more than we can eat in a week.

Blackberries ripen in Florida from the first week in May through the end of June.

Blueberries It was the last week of their season. No more pre-picked blueberries, so I had to pick my own. Blueberries are very easy to pick since they grow on bushes about 4-feet tall, without thorns.

All berries, including Blueberries, tend to get smaller near the end of the season. As you can see in the right-hand picture at the top, they’re much smaller than blackberries, so it takes a lot more to get one pound. You have to pick a lot more of them to get one pound.

I didn’t even make it to one pound. I picked with only three servings, 6 ounces. Berries are my wife’s favorite so we’ll both have berries one night and she get’s the last serving the next night.

Blueberries start to ripen in Florida in April and continue through most of May.

Strawberries Strawberry season is over. In Florida, it starts in December and runs through March.

I bought all of our strawberries this year, except for one time. That was the first time that I ever picked strawberries. I picked about 4 pounds in 15 minutes, faster and easier than I expected.

Strawberries do not grow on bushes like blueberries and blackberries. The plants hug the ground and the berries ripen under the leaves.

The farmer planted them at the top of mounded rows. The berries hang down and are easy to see and easy to pick. You can see them in the picture.

Blackberry and blueberry bushes continue to grow throughout the year. However, the farmer plows the strawberry plants under and replants.

My grandparents never did that with their strawberry patch. Their berries got smaller as the plants aged.

Conclusion We are not vegetarians, but we eat a lot of fresh vegetables, especially from the local farmers market when available. They are wonderful coming right out of the garden or farm.

References:

Challenge article: April 30 tips article by Matt Lillywhite

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