Lucky for me, the strawberries also waited for me to get back from Chicago. Today I went out to Produce Acres to pick my year’s share!
Picking strawberries definitely reveals one’s outlook on life. Me? I was convinced right away that my row was a loser. First, as Russ and I were walking to it, a little boy picking berries with his mom shouted, “Mom, I’m picking all the big ones!” Russ said softly, “You’re supposed to pick ALL the ripe berries.” His mom followed up by saying it was good she was going behind him.
I got the row next to this duo. And on his way out, I heard Russ say, “Did you want to pick two rows? No? Well, then, this is your row.”
Sure enough, as I started picking, all my berries were tiny, and sparse. I kept catching the sight of bigger berries in the next row over, and even in the row the woman and her son were picking. I felt free to pick theirs, since they had already been through. I was discouraged. It was going to be a lot of cutting out tops from tiny berries… but they were mighty sweet.
I was pretty alone in my spot. No one to overhear as I made my way down the row, just time to think. And so I wondered about managing a U-Pick operation. What row and where do you start people so they will not be discouraged and give up or leave disparaging your operation? About halfway through I hit larger berries and more plentiful plants. Russ walked by again and said: “You’re getting into the motherlode there.”
Yes, yes I was! And that pushed me to keep picking, getting all those great berries, piling them on top of the layer of little berries. I picked even more than I’d planned, six pounds. Who could stop in the middle of a motherlode?
In the end, Russ’s strategy struck me as smart. Make people work for it at first, so you get those little berries picked. Then have them come upon the larger, more plentiful plants, just as they’re starting to lag, where they’ll feel renewed and rewarded.
And yes, there will be jam.