Opening Weekend!!

It has been awhile since I updated the blog and hopefully after pictures and comments it will become clear as to why it has taken me so long.
The berries decided not to wait on the market to become ready before becoming ripe. We tried keeping up with the picking but it got away from us. So we had to open before the farm was completely ready. As usual I ran out of the house without grabbing my camera. You would think this day of all days would be the one I'd have the camera in hand. Luckily, our cousin Ashley who helped out for the day brought hers and got some really good pictures.

In this photo you see my under the big red tent! We used this tent last year to sell tomatoes at the farmer's market. With tomatoes it made them all look neon red and made sells reall go well. The red tent doesn't do the strawberries justice though. It makes the ripe ones look over ripe so again I was telling people to hold the container in the sun to get a true color. In the background you can see the progress that has been made on the market.
This was a long day for us! We opened the farm and on the same day there was a 5 mile flea market just down the road. We had set up a table thereand had my sister-in-law sell berries from it. We got alot of business from that later in the afternoon and then again today on Sunday.

 A busy moment under the big tent. The gentleman in the gray shirt is my husband Jeffrey who has worked non-stop trying to get everything ready. He really deserves a vacation or at the very least a day in the boat fishing.
The man in the black shirt by the tent is my dad, Johnny, who came out to show his support. And the man in the far right corner in the shorts is my brother, Johnny, who has been a huge help. He came to our house just to visit and I put him to work putting the strawberry boxes together.
The berries you see on the table are the ones that we had the girls in the field just about all day.
The kids at the table are looking at a coloring book that we give away to the kids who come to pick. It is a really neat little book that tells all about growing strawberries. It also has a couple of recipes that children would like and some puzzles and games in them. As a part of the North Carolina Strawberry Association we can order these to give away. The kids loved them! I even had a lady pick one up because she wanted one of the recipes in it.

Just a different shot of the same group. Jeff said I should have been a used car salesman because I had the knack for selling. I really don't see that-all I knew was if there were any left I would have to take them home and cut them up for jams later on. After a couple of 12 hours day, I really did not want to have to cut up strawberries all night long.
The joke around the house has been that we haven't had to buy any Febreeze in a week because our house, cars, and office smell like strawberries. I even had some in my refrigerator for a few days that were sliced and ready for the freezer. After those few days a gallon of sweet tea that was in there too had a hint of strawberry in the taste. Jeff thought I was crazy (haha). Needless to say I had to start over with a new jug of tea. It was the boost I needed to get those berries in the freezer.

A picture of people out int he field. It seemed like when there were more people in the field more people stopped at the farm. The field can be seen from the highway. I'm thinking next weekend, I may get some family members come out and walk around in the field just to boost the number of people stopping by. It was a hugely fun day for me! The kids that came out made my day worth it all. They would all go into the field with clean faces and then would come back out with strawberry juice all over their innocent looking little faces. I am thinking of trying to find one of those scales like they have a fairs for guessing games so I can weigh the kids going in and out. I think they would have a lot of fun with that.

Another group in the field. In the very back of the field you can see the girls we hired to do some picking while we sold. I was surprised at how many people would rather buy the pre-picked ones. It was a gorgeous day and I thought for sure that most of our sales were going to come from pick your own. Everyone seemed to emjoy themselves. I can't wait until we have everything in place and there is more for them see at the farm.

This is the view from one end of the sales tables. These are the ones the girls has picked that day. They had also picked some the day before so that we didn't start out with empty tables but those were sold within the first 3 hours of opening. We had these boxes lined up on the ground behind us but the quickly made it to the tables.

Just a picture of the boxes lined up. We had thought of buying the plastic buckets that other farms use but these boxes were less expensice and in my opinioin look better. Plus, we can pack these boxes in the field and that is less handling of the berries. The more the berries are handled the more bruised they get. And then of course they break down even faster. Using these boxes has cut down on the amount of waste in a big way.

This is a picture of one of the berries in my hand. Isn't this thing huge? It looked so pretty I just had to eat it-haha. I will apologize for the strawberry stains on my hands. I think they have been stained for a solid week now. I have even had to bleach out the stains in my kitchen counters. I can't imagine what the girls' hands look like that had been out there picking all those berries. I told my nail lady that my nails would be stained pink until the tomatoes come in and then they will be a greenish color again. She just shakes her head at me haha.

Now comes the fun part of the weekend where I try to figure out how many pounds we sold. Jeff has figure that we should have 4400 pounds of strawberries by the end of the season. Doesn't that sound like a lot of strawberries? It sure did to me. But after this weekend it doesn't seem so bad. A rough estimate of pounds sold would be somewhere in the 800-900 pound range.Between that and sales to restaurants, different businesses, and family and friends we are probably 1/4 of the way through those pounds. This is why I haven't been able to update the blog. Picking, cleaning, and selling all those berries have taken up every moment of my time. Then when the sun went down I was in the kitchen cleaning and slicing berries to put in the freezer for the jams later on.
Tomorrow I have the day off from the farm, so to speak. I have to go buy more boxes!! We practically used all the ones we got this week. We bought 500 and I think we only have about 150 boxes this week. Plus, I have to get the business license, our sign permit, and make some deliveries.I will be on the road most of the day but will spend a good deal of it in the greenhouse. We have put most of what I had started in there in the field already so it's time to start the second tier of all of them.This way we can have tomatoes all the way up to the first frost. I will blog about that later this week.