CHESAPEAKE, Va. - In the bell curve of the local strawberry season, area fields are as full of the red sweet fruit as they'll get this year.
Mother's Day brought big crowds to Hickory Ridge Farm on Battlefield Boulevard, where strawberry season has been in full swing since April.
“Mother’s Day is a traditional strawberry picking day," said Robin Pierce, who owns the farm with her husband, John.
After taking over the farm 12 years ago, Pierce says she and her husband still learning something new each strawberry season, but one constant concern is getting enough people out as the weather warms. She says once June arrives, it gets too hot and the growing season winds down.
“Right now is the best time to come, so it is the, I guess, most crucial time to get people out to pick because we get so many that we hate to see them go to waste," she told News 3 on Sunday.
Pierce says this season's April was relatively cold, making it difficult to grow enough strawberries for picking, and then a hot first week of May ripened so many that they could get people to pick them fast enough.
This week, the farm offered a deal to try and get people out: Pick two buckets and get the third free. Sunday, the farm hosted a pop-up Mother's Day market to keep the foot traffic flowing and the fields quickly filled up with families.
Pierce says she anticipates posting additional deals to Hickory Ridge's social media as the season continues.
A busy time for the mother of three boys — making it difficult to relax on Mother's Day, but she's still making time to be with family.
"Since we had the special market, I’m here, but my boys, two of them will be here today and one of them will come have lunch with me after so it’s a family thing," she said.
