The middle of July is late for prime strawberry picking, but we went to Sakuma Bros. Farms & Market in the Skagit Valley (about 1 hour north of Seattle) to see what we could score. We went looking for Shuksan strawberries, which is an heirloom variety that has the most perfumed flavor. Alas, it was past the season. But there were other varieties to be had.

The kids don’t have much of sense of what manual labor means or how hard farming is. I made it a point to explain that we go strawberry picking for fun, but there are many people for whom strawberry picking is a back-breaking, low-paying livelihood.

This is the second year we’ve gone to Sakuma. The kids get to eat strawberries from the plants and taste real berry flavor.

It didn’t take long before the kids got tired of picking strawberries, though. In the end, we got 13 pounds of strawberries, which we’ve frozen to use in smoothies and baked goods.