Strawberry season is in full swing.
McArthur’s Berry Farm on Line 5 South in Oro Station opened for its 44th season last week and owner Glen McArthur says the farm has been enjoying a record year during their first week of harvesting.
“It’s been very busy," he said, noting the farm has enjoed "some of the busiest days we have had ever. We pretty much got picked clean.”
The farm has been so busy that McArthur is encouraging customers to give them a small break early this week.
“I had to update my website to tell people they should wait until mid-week this week because we need to rebound a bit,” he said.
Not only is it a record year for demand, but the crop also held up well and has been producing excellent quality strawberries, McArthur said.
“The crop was very good, people were very happy, it’s been one of our better seasons actually,”
One of the factors in the success of this year’s crop is attributed to the weather
“Weather hasn’t been an issue. It’s getting very hot for people to harvest but other than that conditions are good,” McArthur explained.
When it comes to keeping patrons safe during the short 15-20-day strawberry-picking season at McArthur’s Berry Farm, McArthur has been taking advice from the Ontario Berry Growers Association.
When people arrive at the farm they are assigned to certain rows that they can pick from to ensure physical distancing is being practiced.
There are no baskets being lent out this year. Instead, people are asked to bring their own baskets (with metric volume clearly shown) or they are asked to buy one from the farm for $1. Patrons are also asked to come on their own to pick strawberries for their families.
“People have been coming in with their masks and gloves which is good. We just want to make sure people are respecting each other's space and are staying in their assigned rows,” McArthur said.
The record success at McArthur’s Berry Farm isn’t being shared at Coulson Ridge Farm on Horseshoe Valley Road in Oro Station.
Pick-your-own strawberries at Coulson Ridge are now closed for the season with a limited amount of strawberries being made available at their market shop.
“We are done for the year. Our crop wasn’t what we hoped and expected it to be, so we decided to try and keep everyone happy by just selling through the store,” said Corine Bateman who works in Ego’s Garden Centre, which operates Coulson Ridge.
Bateman said that COVID-19 wasn’t the main contributor in the decision to cut short the strawberry-picking season this year, but it did play a small role.
"There are a lot of factors that would have contributed to it,” she said.
“It would have been difficult to do crowd control especially with the crop that we had with not as many berries in the field," said Bateman.
Although it’s disappointing for Ego’s Garden Centre to cease strawberry picking operations for the year, Bateman feels it might be for the best while operating during a global pandemic.
“It’s almost nicer to have people come into the store where our crowd-control practices are a little more rigid,” she said.
