Can you believe this is our neighborhood?

It is honestly so exciting as the various fruits come into season to see (and be part of) all of the fruit-picking action! The orchards start not more than a block from our house, and from all accounts it looks like this is going to be a banner year. This is in stark contrast to 2024’s destructive late frost that all but destroyed the entire Bluff’s supply of cherries, peaches, apricots, and lavender. This year the cherry trees are BURSTING with fruit, so July should be fun as well.

But today is Strawberry Day! We went around the corner to our favorite brewery/fruit farm, Big Barn Brewing and “Bodacious Fruit”. Steve and I each picked a flat, and then as soon as we got home we put the first batch of sliced berries into the freeze dryer. Our freeze-dried strawberries are AMAZING - they really retain both the flavor and a nice (non-chewy) texture. So today’s haul should end up making about 3 4-tray batches of future snacking goodness. They are literally so good that I don’t waste them on things like oatmeal, muffins, or smoothies - we just eat them by the handful. Yes, please!

I don’t know how many acres they have in strawberries, but it is about as far as the eye can see! And we drove past two other giant strawberry farms on the 3-minute drive to get here!

I love how the berries are just lurking underneath the leaves. You clear a section out, start walking down the row and turn around and see entire clusters that were hiding from you.

Strawberry selfie - our house is beyond that electric pole toward the mountain.

Signature strawberry pink hands

Today’s haul

So cool. The growers say they get 4 years out of strawberry plants starting their second year. Then they dig it all up and plant new plugs. We have watched them doing that process (planting the plugs), and it is amazing. They have a little machine that 4 people stand or sit behind as it moves down the row, and as the machine “flips” the next little plant into position they guide it into place. The machine also automatically “pats” them into place. The closest farm to us planted 60,000 baby strawberry plants in a separate field for next year’s picking in a 2-day period!

Now we get to work.

Slice slice slice

Pop them in the freeze dryer. It will take these about 15-16 hours as the machine super-freezes them to extract the moisture. We had a dehydrator for a long time (and probably still do), but the freeze dryer is next-level. I personally am not trained on how to use it - Montana and Steve are the experts.

Part of picking fruit is you get to eat as much as you want while you are picking! But don’t forget to have a little lunch when you get home.