May in review

May.

The strawberry season is in full swing at Berries Direct Farming

May is a peak time for us at Berries Direct Farming.  The sun came out with a mini heatwave and the volume of strawberries being picked shot up.
This has kept our workers very busy and very happy - with a great opportunity to pick strawberries in our glasshouse and for high packing volumes in our packhouse.

The main job this month is to pick and pack strawberries to be sold to major supermarkets. The best quality strawberries are picked directly into punnets, then taken to our fridges to be cooled before being heat sealed for the supermarkets in their own packaging

At this time our pickers are picking what we call Class 1 strawberries which have a good shape with a nice, even, red colouring. We have great sales of for the lower quality and misshapen strawberries which we call Class 2, these are picked into smaller punnets and we sell these at our farm gate.  As well as picking yummy fruit we also have to pick any diseased and pest-damaged strawberries that cannot be sold, because we have to keep the plants clean and let them send their nutrients to new strawberries that are growing so that the next pick of berries are mature and ready to be picked. 

We are also spraying our crops so that when we are ready to pick the tunnel crops they are free from residues and have fewer pest and disease issues.  The tunnels will be prepared to start having pickers based at our stations there and we also spend time preparing picking trolleys, boxes and getting the punnets ready to pick directly into.