Agricultural experts in Maine are giving this year’s strawberry season a thumbs up.
David Handley, vegetable and small fruit specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, says that’s despite the relative lack of protective snow cover last winter.
“So when we have a bare winter like this it’s always a little nail-biting, but it turned out we had good straw cover over on them and it never got quite cold enough really cause a lot of injury so the crop looks good overall,” he says. “The quantity looks good, in other words there’s going to be a good number of strawberries out there for people to pick. The fact that’s it’s been relatively warm and relatively dry usually is good for sweetness and flavor, usually increases the intensity a little bit. The downside of that is, what you pay in the end, is that we may not have quite the size that we want.”
He says picking in southern Maine started last weekend, although growers may only be open a few days a week, and that things should really pick up by the end of next week and peak around July 4.
The farther north in the state, the later the picking season.
