It happens to the best of us. You see something you really like on a store shelf, but for whatever reason, decide you have to think about it. Then, by the time you return, it’s gone.
That was the case for me this year with local strawberries. While I bought several quarts from a local family farm near where my daughters live in Northern Virginia, I figured I still had time to get out onto the farm in Pittsburgh because weather in the D.C.
area is always a couple weeks ahead of Western Pennsylvania, right? Turns out I was wrong. Unseasonably warm temperatures in early June coupled with some heavy rains ripened local strawberry fields ahead of schedule this year. U-pick opportunities are generally over.
While some farms still have staff-picked berries, chances are you’re out of luck if you don’t get them soon. “We started picking on May 22, which was about a week early because we had such warm weather,” says Carolyn Beinlich, owner of Triple B Farms in Monongahela, which counts U-pick strawberries among its offerings. “It was ridiculously early, maybe the earliest I’ve ever seen,” agreed her visiting daughter, Rebecca Sodergren, who was a food writer for the Pittsburg Gazette before moving to Luzerne County a few years ago.
One exception is Simmons Farm in McMurray. While U-pick concluded in June, owner Scott Simmons said they hope to have a steady supply of fresh berries in the market through July 15 since they can supplement their stock with strawberries from .