PYO- Pick Your Own…
Who doesn’t want to do that? When your in the supermarket buying apple, you know your squeezing em’ to see which is best…
So why not skip the middle man, go right to the farm that grows them and pick your own fruit at that perfect moment!
This Month were discussing PYO Berries.
June is prime strawberry season, July brings in the blueberries and raspberries! (and thats just the tip of the iceberg).
The fun doesn’t stop with picking, when you bring home that goodness, you can make Jams, Jellies, and Preserves to last all year!
Berry picking is a fun way to spend time with your family and enjoy being outside. But can it actually save you some money? This is the question Accountant Mike and I set out to answer in the breakdown of this episode.
Can You Save Money Going to a You Pick Farm, Picking Fresh Berries, and Preserving Them?
First you need to consider what work is involved in the You Pick Process.
We take our family of 5 out each summer and collect 10-25 lbs of berries, depending on the fruit were picking. This generally takes us a few hours, between driving to and from the farm, and picking, we spend a whole morning.
So why go to another farm to pick when I own a farm myself?
Because my farm is loaded with livestock.
We have goats, which have killed apple trees, and berry bushes. Until we are able to fence our produce properly, we will be You Picking!
That said, we could never plant the scale and variety on our property that is available at the You Pick Farm.
Each berry bush is generally $4-$6, and they take a few years to begin giving good quality yields. So we will always spend spring on other farms You Picking!
This year we picked 25 lbs of strawberries.
Once we had our berries all picked, we had them weighed out and priced at $60.00.
Yes, you pay to pick them yourselves. Your paying for the experience, and high quality fruit. You never have a chance to enjoy fruit picked at perfect ripeness unless you go to a You Pick Farm, and you pay for that experience.
It took us 5 hours door to door to pick and return home.
Once we returned home with our fresh picked produce, we began the canning process.
Canning is one of those thing in life where you buy all your gear the first year, and then you can reuse most of it for the rest of your life, so although there is some expense up front, it pays for itself quickly when reused season after season.
We used $50 in canning equipment to put up a years supply of jam.
So all and all, we spend about a whole day picking and preserving strawberries, and spend $110 in berries and equipment.
Now it was time to compare this figure to buying the same type of product locally.
We found a price of organic strawberry jam locally.
If we were to buy the same amount of organic strawberry jam locally we would have to spend about $160.00
Not only was our Jam cheaper, but it was fresher, picked at the perfect ripeness, and a product we could proudly stand behind.
Accountant Mike gave berry picking a BIG THUMBS UP!
So, during the summer months when the strawberry, blueberry and other berries are in season, head on out to your local You Pick farm, and bring home as many as you can possibly pick!
The Shopping List
Ball Mason Jars Wide-Mouth Can or Freeze – 16 oz 12pk
Traditional Canning Starter Set
Ball RealFruitTM Low or No-Sugar-Needed Pectin – Flex Batch 4.7 oz.
In this Episode
Have you ever tried the Pamona’s Universal Pectin? I prefer to use that for my honey based jams. It is faster and easier then the ball equivalent. There is no specific temperature like with the ball product to get a good gel. You can get it locally at the natural food store on Bank street and at whole foods.
I too pick all our fruit during the summer to last us all winter long.
Peace~
Wow, Honey based jams, that sounds great Tal! We have not, but I will certainly look into it. And are you talking about Bank Street in New Milford? if so… Howdy Neighbor! Where do you go in the area to pick?