Under a Leaf with Ginny: Berry Picking

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Berry Picking

Keryn, myself, and Ben went out to Sweet Berry Farms today to pick blackberries and strawberries. The farm is located near Marble Falls Texas and took us about an hour to get to from Keryn's place in Cedar Park. The drive was incredible because of all the wild flowers ablaze on both sides of the highway. There were large fields of intense reds, and orange, and fields of yellow too. Some fields had mixed varieties of red, blue, yellow, white and pink flowers. On the sides of the highways the colors were usually mixed but occasional large clumps of one color would prevail. what ever the case, it was all stunning.

I had a wonderful time taking pictures of Ben happily picking berries. He liked going for the blackberries the most, probably because he doesn't like strawberries very well. Too bad because they are so unbelievably sweet and luscious. These berries are the real deal and are nothing like grocery store berries. It was a nice little field trip and we got to eat berries right off the vine as we picked. This is an organic farm from what I understand, and I believe it because the bugs were numerous! We had to fight them for the precious fruits. There were beneficials all over the plants too though which was a good thing.

The farm is going to be on our list of things to do during various seasons because they have other things planted for harvesting such as pumpkins, tomatoes, and potatoes. I think Ben will have a fantastic time digging for potatoes so we'll certainly return for that. What a great thing a local farm is. I plan on taking Ben to more of them this summer since there are plenty of them around Austin that offer educational opportunities for youngsters.
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