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The SITS Girls

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Pick Your Own Berries: A Summertime Tradition

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Can you believe summer is almost here? This means one of our favorite activities is right around the corner!

pick your own berries

Pick your own fruit and vegetable fields are such a summertime treasure. I love that it gives my family a one on one lesson from Mother Nature herself about where food comes from. There is something about being outside under the sunshine, enjoying the warm summer air, nibbling on fruit, fresh from the harvest, and mentally planning all of the great ways you are going to use each and every morsel.

pick your own berries

Our first pick your own experience was a happy one. We drove about 20 minutes outside the city, navigating dusty farm roads to the little berry farm. Once there, the farmer himself met us by a big red barn and handed us a bucket. He instructed us to pick the biggest, blackest, blackberries we could find– and encouraged us to eat as many as we would like!

pick your own

We wound our way around the long grassy pathways, picking, and picking, and picking. We also ate, and ate, and ate! When our buckets were as full as our bellies, we headed back to the red barn to pay for our harvest. A few bucks later, we were back in our car– cradling our berries like treasure. Heading homeward bound, the car was a buzz as we discussed the greatest destiny for each juicy handful. Pie? Tarts? Jam? The possibilities were endless!

pick your own

Each and every summer we all look forward to picking our own fruit. I usually schedule it on my calendar weeks and weeks in advance. Did you know it was as easy as pie to find a pick your own farm or field near you? It is! This is the website I always use to discover our next adventure: www.pickyourown.org.

Just pick your state, pick your county, and you will find a listing of all the local farms that offer pick your own options!

pick your own

You will love it! Your family will love it! Your newest summertime family tradition awaits you!

About Tracie Nall

Tracie lives in Arizona with her husband, teen daughter, and more books than her shelves will hold. She spends her days writing and editing. Many of her words end up on her blog, From Tracie. Find Tracie on Twitter @FromTracie and on Instagram where she takes pictures of things that are yellow.

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Comments

  2. Lady Jennie says

    We used to pick strawberries and blueberries, and now we grow our own strawberries, raspberries and grapes (and apricots and plums and apples and hazelnuts and hopefully one day cherries). It’s our first strawberry harvest but I’ve not been motivated to go out and weed or pick because we’re having such a drought. Nothing is growing very well.

  4. Michelle G says

    I remember picking my own strawberries w/ my parents when I was a kid – it sounds fun, and delicious! There is really no comparison between the fruit you pick from nature and the stuff you get from a grocery store.

  5. New York Cliche says

    This was one of my all time favorite activities as a kid, and my mom and I still have a tradition to go when ever we are on the same coast in the summer. Aw, this brought back great memories- thanks!

  7. Karen Averill says

    Love picking berries, corn, mangoes pineapple . . . just about anything anyone anywhere will let me pick. Road trips are the best way – just stop and ask. Remember, if you don’t ask, the answer is always “no”. Biggest problem – most are so yummy they never make it to the car! Thanks for encouraging others to pick and support their local farms.

  9. Katherine says

    I’m a huge fan of “pick your own.” We’ve picked our own apples, but as yet have not picked berries. But this may be the summer!

  12. Tracie says

    I LOVE to pick my own berries….I also love to eat them, so I try to pick extras so that the rest of the family can have some too!

  14. Emily Heizer, Photography with FLAIR says

    You need to really watch it with that website! It has not been updated in a really long time and last year I copied down a list of a half dozen pick your own locations I wanted to go to and drove around 30 miles or more to go to them. Most of them did not have numbers or email addresses listed, but had positive reviews and hours posted so I just went.

    NONE of them were really pick your owns, or were open. One address led me to a HOUSE. Down a dirt driveway to a house in a deserted area. It was creepy. Clearly, they had a GARDEN, which you could pick your own or something, but what am I going to go knock on this random person’s door and ask if I can root around in their garden? Another place said it was pick your own but it was really a roadside stand and it was unmanned. It was also mostly empty. This was midmorning on a Saturday in summer. No one was there, there was no way to pay, it was totally deserted. All of the other addresses listed on Pick your Own that I went to were like that! Totally abandoned, not in service, locked gates when they were supposed to be open, and clearly not growing anything in the middle of growing season.

    The “glowing” reviews posted about these farms were done in 2008 and 2009, relatively recently, but not recently enough that I would reccomend anyone use this site with confidence. Out of over a DOZEN locations I eventually scouted, I only found ONE that I could go to. And unlike it was listed on the website, it was not pick your own. It was also unmanned, but it was self-serve so I could just weigh my vegetables myself. No berries or fruits though.

    Really sucked. Terrible experience. Just returned to the website hoping it had been updated. Um, no.

  15. Christy, Home-Mom says

    When we bought our home last year it came complete with a row of raspberries Yum! I’m hoping they’ll come back up this year. I’ll have to check out the website for local pickeries in my area .)

  16. Leah says

    Thank you so much for this great article and the Web site. My 3-year-old daughter keeps asking to go berry picking. Wasn’t sure how to manage that, and now I do!

  17. Melissa says

    Thank you so much for that link! I’m always on the hunt for outdoor activities with my kids. We’ve gone apple picking and to countless pumpkin patches — but they’re always hard to find. I’ll check out that link.

    My kids basically inhale fruit. They can plow through a pint of blueberries in one sitting. What a great reminder that picking season is almost here!

  18. misssrobin says

    Thank you so much for sharing this. I remember picking from my grandma’s garden when I was little. I’m definitely looking into this for my family.

  21. Jessica says

    I love taking my two year old to pick your own farms!! It really gets him in the mood to eat some of the deliciousness we bring home with us! Thanks for this post–it reminded me I need to get us back to our local berry place. Thanks so much!

  22. Parsley Sage says

    Oh, so jealous! Lots of my friends live in Pennsylvania and I always cry a little when I see them picking their own berries on facebook. No berry picking in Cayman, in fact they’re too expensive to even buy! I wonder if Farmer Otto will let me pick some of his mangoes…

  23. The Souper says

    We had a wonderful experience picking our own strawberries. Beautiful low plants and the berries were so sweet. A must during the strawberry season.

    The Souper