My friend Jan, who lives in South Salem, keeps reading my mind. Last Thursday, shortly after I posted about looking for great strawberry patches, she called to invite me to join her on her own berry foray with her kids at Olson’s in SE Salem, just off of Hwy. 22.
My answer: UM… yeah!
Olson’s is a gorgeous little strawberry patch set on a hill overlooking the Willamette Valley, though at $1.00/lb., the price is a little more expensive than some of the other patches around town. I like to think you are paying for the view, the scent of strawberries wafting at you from 20 ft. before you even step foot between the rows, and the drive through the holly, cherry and peach orchards to get there.
Olson’s currently has three varieties for pick-your-own (they tell me it is called U-pick here in Salem, but to me that sounds like corporate branding).
We picked a range of:
Tillamook - very red, curvy, slightly tart, deceptive like a very sexy lady who really isn’t all that nice
Benton — very sweet, oblong oval-shaped, tastes better than it looks, but still slightly mushy towards the stem, the sexy librarian of strawberries
The patches at Olson’s are simply overflowing right now with berries — the bushes are just thick with them. Just run your arm across the top of them and this entire world of ripening berries is revealed beneath you fingers.
The view from the rows says it all — strawberries in Oregon are so abundant right now that the floor is littered with berries in every state of growth and decay.
It is a berry jungle out there.
I picked a flat by myself in about 45 minutes (eating half as many along the way), and checked out at the farmstand for $6.75. We froze half of those berries for smoothies and ate half of the rest.
It takes one day to recover from gurgly berry tummy.
We returned to Olson’s this afternoon after trying to go to the much-hailed Daum’s for some of the same. Sadly, Daum’s is already done for the season… mwah mwah mwah. So we drove back to Olson’s, this time, with my trash compacter husband.
Today was a red-letter-day for strawberry picking. The crowd was surely off giving ties to dads or breakfasting late, because we found ourselves with just one other couple at the patch, the wind blowing just a little bit, the patches once again just pregnant with berries.
We discovered the motherload lies very close the the irrigation pipes. If the patch is so thick that you can’t walk between them, chances are good that no one has trampled through these parts in quite some time.
Half an hour late we were pretty much done — just a few more berries, enough for our impending guests and to make a few jars of jam.
Then we fleeced our landlord’s tree of nearly all of its Rainer Cherries (with his permission).
Lisa, Joe, Adam and I set to work processing the strawberries and cherries. I generally hate this kind of work when I’m doing it by myself, but in the company of friends, the time just breezed by. Kind of makes me wish I had my grandmothers around. Kind of makes me want to join a quilting bee.
We ended up with way more fruit than we need…
Adam dished out his own… topped with the Loomster, the largest, most Frankenberryish of them all.
Our friends left and I took a break. I am a great self-starter, I am a terrible closer. Two hours later, I decided to make the jam.
I ended up with eleven smallish jars of strawberry jam, about four quarts of cut strawberries left, a ton of cherries, sugared-out tastebuds, and the satisfaction from having extended the life of an always-too-short fruiting season.
Bring on the blueberries!
Sometimes I feel a twinge of pity for people who grew up here — I don’t think they fully get how blessed this area is.
You could say the Willamette River Valley has an embarassment of riches when it comes to food. Honestly, that’s half the reason I moved here.
Beautiful images, Em. I like them all, but especially the ground level one of the the plants!
Good grief, we are almost tired of strawberries too. I turned my 29 pounds into 21 small jars of jam, three one-gallon bags of whole berries in the freezer, bowlfuls given two friends, berry syrup atop banana splits on Friday night, and strawberry shortcake (Alec’s creation) on Saturday AND Sunday. I have one big bowl left in the frig that might get blended with vanilla ice cream tonight. Boing–that was the button on my pants popping off!!
I haven’t had a strawberry in about two years. Too bad the season should be over by the time we get home. Although I think the cherries should be coming in and there are always apples and raspberries! I have also been hankering to go canoeing in Iowa and pick wild grapes. My mom makes delicious wild grape jelly. Maybe I can trade you some wild grape jelly for strawberry?
[...] year I made strawberry jam in an effort to share the taste of Oregon with my family members back East and in the Midwest. This [...]