Extended Season Fresh Strawberries

Extended Season Fresh Strawberries Darci Daniels sells fresh strawberries from early June through October, sometimes extending into November. She grows her day-neutral berries in hoop houses and replants the beds each spring. In between, she uses cover crops to restore the soil’s fertility. It’s a practice she never anticipated when she and her husband Justin bought a farm in southwestern Wisconsin in late 2022. “We started a strawberry patch and garden for our family,” recalls Daniels. “However, I kept looking at the three no-longer-used high tunnels on the neighboring farm. I thought about how much we could grow using one of them.” When Daniels and her husband asked about renting one, they learned the owners were planning to move. “They offered to sell the whole thing to us,” she says. “We ran the numbers and figured out how we could buy it.” Without a market gardening background, the Daniels’ decided to start with one hoop house and a single crop—strawberries. “We had started our own June-bearing patch, but we thought it would be hard to scale that up to a 30 by 200-ft. hoop house,” she says. “We did research online about hoop house strawberry production and reached out to several growers doing organic strawberries, which we hoped to do.” One of the growers gave presentations at conferences and was available by phone and text. He became their mentor. With his advice, they filled one of the hoop houses with day-neutral strawberries planted in narrow beds separated by landscape fabric. Drip irrigation was installed at planting. Pollinator strips were planted outside the hoop house, and if a plant didn’t survive, Daniels would fill the hole with a marigold.  “This year, we had a mix of 16 different cover crop varieties in our pollinator strips between the hoop houses,” says Daniels. “They help with the soil and help bring in pollinators, which helps germination.” In 2024, they put the second hoophouse into production, followed by the third this year. “We had some struggles with it this year and didn’t get up to full production,” says Daniels. “Trying to do something at this scale has a lot of question marks. Marketing was a big one.” At peak production, Daniels has harvested nearly 300 lbs. of berries per week. “I have to have people lined up to take them, but I never know if they will until they pick them up.” Daniels also sells berries and takes orders at two local farmers markets, sells to two food co-ops, and distributes through the Iowa Food Hub, a nonprofit in northeast Iowa that distributes locally grown food. “Strawberries don’t have a super long shelf life, so selling is always a concern,” says Daniels. “I have an email list of past customers, so if I have extra, I let them know berries are available. Friends, family, and even my hairstylists will take extras and put them in the freezer.” While the variety she plants is a fairly steady producer throughout the extended season, production begins slowly. Hot weather and the runner season somewhat inhibit it. “Production takes off again in August as the days start to shorten and the nights cool,” says Daniels. Very little goes to waste. She freezes blemished berries for jam and fruit leather after the season ends. This year, she’ll be assembling holiday gift baskets of preserves. As production slows, Daniels winds down the business. End-of-season tasks include removing plants, landscape fabric and drip lines. Cover crops are seeded, courtesy of Resilient Farm Solutions, the Daniels’ other business. Until 2022, the couple ran a dairy farm. Justin slowly grew the business to include forage seed. Leaving the dairy cows behind in 2021, he now sells forage and cover crop seed and raises pasture-fed livestock. Planting pollinator strips and rotating strawberries with cover crops was natural for him and Darci. “We’re regenerative farmers, and we know flavor and nutrition come from the soil,” she says. “By the end of the season, I’m tired of picking, and hydroponic starts to look good. However, I don’t think hydroponic strawberries compare to ours. Ours are sweet and juicy, and we know they’re nutritious.” If the weather cooperates, they return to the hoop houses in March. They spread compost and till it into the soil along with the cover crop. By early April, they add new plants, reinstall drip lines, and lay landscape fabric. “By the first week of June, I hope to be picking strawberries again,” says Daniels. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Darci Daniels, Viroqua, Wis. (ph 715-896-5780; gvfarmstead@gmail.com; www.garden-ridge.com).

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