We have an annual tradition when summer starts to sweeten and the strawberries start to come out. We head to a local farm, get two large plastic buckets, the kids pick strawberries for about 10 minutes then lose interest and start to pick up ants, while I proceed to fill ALL THE BUCKETS and bring home ALL THE STRAWBERRIES, then stress myself out for about a week as to how in the world we are going to eat all these delicious fresh strawberries before they spoil because freezing them is not the same. Ah… family traditions.
Our first strawberry season here in Charlottesville was no different. We were able to bring home buckets full of absolutely perfect strawberries off the stem from Critzer Family Farm.
Critzer Family Farm, located in Afton across from Blue Mountain Brewery, was the perfect place for us. Row upon row of strawberries as far as the eye could see, backed by mountain views. It was stunning.
We were directed by staff to our picking row and, given the size of the farm, we had to walk a bit of a ways down a gravel road (nothing epic, though). We had the row to ourselves and ripe strawberries were basically falling off the plants and jumping into our buckets. I stand by that statement.
Soon enough, I had filled our two buckets to heaping and we were headed out of our row and back down to the farmstand, successful.
Back when we lived in Chapel Hill and started this tradition, there was a lot of conversation in parenting threads about the treatment of and chemical use on strawberries, so today that is something I always research. While Critzer Family Farm isn’t USDA organic certified, they do not use pesticides and try to be as environmentally friendly as possible.
Truly, there is nothing like a fresh strawberry ripened by nature.
We always wear good farm shoes when we pick, hats to shield us from the sun, and I have bug spray and sunscreen in the car in case we need either (or both). And while we have our own buckets we bring, various farms do it differently. Here, they provided a bucket so they could know the precise weight of our berries and charge us by the pound for those, not the bucket.
As I mentioned, we had to walk a bit, but there are rows in different places of the farm and some are adjacent to parking. It really all depends. There were parents successfully pushing off-road strollers around, and carriers would work.
This farm does much more than just strawberries. They have an “you-pick” blackberry patch as well as peaches and plums. They have a farmstand with a huge variety of fresh fruits and vegetables grown on their property (all the way through pumpkins, squashes and gourds in October). They sell plants AND…
..they have home-churned ice cream with their fresh fruits. The strawberry ice cream is phenomenal. It tastes just like summer.
Critzer Family Farm is, as it should be, incredibly popular for picking. So do plan to go early! There are days when they close the patches down early due to the high number of visitors that day.
(Note that there wasn’t a bathroom available when we visited (bad timing, I believe) and we had cash with us as we are never sure of the credit card capabilities of small businesses.)
We saw families bringing picnics with us to spread out and enjoy the sun and views and the farm. I thought that was a lovely idea – but was also just as equally thrilled to get home quickly and start eating all of our new berries. After all, I only had a few weeks left to eat them all and I was not going to put them in the freezer.
More on Critzer Family Farm:
- Critzer Family Farm
- Facebook page for regular updates
- Recipe for a strawberry dessert pizza
Raising Charlottesville is a website dedicated to highlighting fun & local activities for families living in the Charlottesville, VA area.