Strawberry season starts sooner than expected
FREMONT ― The rush to buy fresh local strawberries has started and Steve Polter, Polter's Berry Farm owner, has some theories on why the season started about two weeks early this year.
“I think we’ve got a really good crop. The stuff we are picking has really good size, color is good, and the later ones, that’s yet to be seen, but we’ve got some really nice-looking blooms,” Polter said. “We had a mild winter. When the ground is frozen, it just takes that much longer for the soil to warm up. The ground never really froze this year.”
The rule of thumb for local strawberry crops is that they will be ready to pick on Memorial Day, but that can cause some confusion as the holiday isn’t always on the same date.
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Picking started May 16 at Polter's Berry Farm, 2275 County Road 239. The farm has 12 acres, and the family has been at it for 49 years. Strawberries are their only retail crop, but several weeks into the season they will also supply to some grocery stores, but only one per county. They have commercial customers as far south as Dayton, and also into Toledo and Cleveland. Jeni’s Ice Cream is also a customer.
“There’s always pent-up demand for strawberries. It’s been a whole year since we’ve been open, so I put it out on Facebook ... and word got out, and that’s all it takes. We started picking at 7 a.m. and we opened at 8,” Polter said of opening day.
They were sold out in the early afternoon. Picking will typically continue until the strawberries are all ripened and picked.
The early season was not entirely unexpected.
“I know what the ground’s got to be like,” Polter said. “My parents started it in 1975, so Polter’s Berry Farm has been in the family for 49 years.”
That experience is important.
“We’re about two weeks early. Normally, we would start around the 20th of May, and we started picking some on the 13th,” Polter said. “It goes back and forth. Some years we won’t start until the 30th. This is one of the earliest years we’ve had, but the earliest was 2012, we started on the fifth, and we’re not even close to that.”
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Polter's competes with strawberries grown in warmer areas than Northwest Ohio, so some of that early season is intentional.
“We’re growing with a different system than most people do. We have started with plastic-covered beds, which makes for kind of a greenhouse effect. It warms up the soil earlier than normal. We’re pushing it to make it earlier. Then we also have the traditional straw-covered system,” Polter said.
The dual growing method has extended the growing season to about five weeks.
“It’s continuous. There shouldn’t be any gaps (in time). Once we transition into the straw-covered system, there might be some overlap. We will be picking both at the same time. Then we will phase the plastic system out and just be picking on the straw-covered beds,” Polter said.
They also replant in the plastic-covered rows. It leads to bigger fruit, which customers have come to expect from the family farm.
He’s hoping to make it until June 25.
“Some weeks we make it until the Fourth of July, but I doubt we will see July this year,” Polter said. “We will continuously pick. There are all stages of ripening on those plants. There’s ripe fruit, green fruit, blooms, there’s everything on there. You only pick a certain percentage every time you pick.”
They divide the fields up in a picking rotation.
There are some differences this year. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been a variety of changes in the berry business. The big one for Polter is the elimination of U-Pick strawberries. After the removal of pandemic restrictions they tried bringing it back, but have finally decided against doing that.
Polter’s retail operation opens daily at 8 a.m. On weekends they close at 5 p.m. and at 6 on weekdays. Early in the season, they will often be sold out in the early afternoon. Polter recommends arriving early. He recommends checking the Facebook page, because he posts the time they are sold out.
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This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: North Central Ohio strawberry season starts sooner than anticipated
