Friday, 6 August 2010

Canada Trip Day 7: Driediger Fruit Farms

19 June 2010 - My experience at Driediger Fruit Farm was extraordinary and fun! The Driediger Fruit Farm is a family business that started since the 1940s and the U-Pick farms started in the 1960s! For more about the Driediger Fruit Farm history, please click here.

My uncle prepared us buckets to bring to the farm. We were going to pick strawberries that day and I was excited because my uncle had told us that we could also pick it straight from the bush and eat it!

The strawberry farm is huge with strawberry shrubs lined in long, neat rows. We quickly found our spot and started picking strawberries. I tried looking for the biggest, reddest and juiciest-looking strawberries in the bushes. Each time I found one, I marveled at their size and then slowly savors the fruit in my mouth. It is hard to find the clean big, red strawberries because I realised they are often touching the floor and already caked with earth. And, the reddest ones are often too ripe and their flesh tear easily when placed in the bucket with the others. So, I tried looking for the ones that are red but not mushy.

After a while, although I was still excitedly filling the bucket with strawberries and occasionally popping one or two strawberries in my mouth, strawberry-picking turned out to be a rather tedious job. Imagine having to squat for hours to reach these low-lying bushes. I was having a bit of a backache - I sound like an old lady! Hahaha! I wasn't so sure if it was because I was constantly eating the strawberries that the bucket was filling up so slowly. Three of us were sharing that same bucket and we took more than half an hour to fill it up!

Driediger farms signboard


Driediger Fruitstand


Heading towards the U-Pick strawberry fields


Big cherry tree in front of the fruit stand


Cherries


Lady picking strawberry


Strawberry plants bearing fruits


Searching for red, juicy strawberries in the strawberry bushes


Long, neat rows of strawberry plants


Blueberries at the back of the fruitstand


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