Pick-Your-Own Farms Save Summer!
It’s June, and we’ve hit that scary territory where my daughter is out of school for two weeks. We have two extra days a week to fill, when we were barely finding ways to fill the previous five. Given her druthers, my daughter would happily while away the extra days parked in front of the computer, playing video games on the PBS website. As much as I hate to admit it, there’s a part of me that would like to allow that. But that’s not good for any of us.
Like everyone else, we’re always searching for inexpensive, educational, and fun activities. During this school break, we found one of the best — hitting our local pick-your-own berry farm. We’re lucky in that we live near Eckert’s Farm, the world’s largest pick-your-own operation. But even if you’re not our neighbor, there are pick-your-own farms just about everywhere, according to pickyourown.org.
As the seasons change, so do the crops. Once the strawberries are gone, we can look forward to blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. July brings peaches, followed by apples and pumpkins — enough fun to get us to the next school year, and a bumper crop of inexpensive, locally-grown produce.
For a little over $15, my daughter and I spent an afternoon on the farm, leisurely picking seven and a half pounds of perfect strawberries off the vines. She got to learn a little about how farms work, how to choose which berries to pick, and we both got a hefty workout and some great mother-daughter time on a sunny summer day. We went home happy and tired, with enough strawberries to preserve for those not-so-warm days in seasons to come. Hopefully, we also created some fond memories that will last long after the strawberries are gone.
