The true glory of nature’s bounty can be seen in the heavily draped branches of fruit-bearing plants at the height of a Vermont summer. There are few things that bring me more joy during this season than picking berries. Perhaps it is a deep calling to some long-forgotten farming roots. More likely, it is my competitive nature delighting in seeing my basket filled to the brim with shiny, ripe fruit bursting with juice, combined with my maternal compulsion to constantly feed everyone, every day, all the time.
Yet there is also the quiet meditation of gently harvesting something so delicate and beautiful, and the sweet, bursting taste of fresh-off-the-vine berries hijacking that primitive part of your brain that is in constant need of more sugar. Then there is the anticipatory excitement of it all. In the final chilly days of May, you can begin daydreaming of June strawberries, which leads to longing for the cherries and blueberries of July, followed by the raspberries and blackberries of August, rounded out by the grand finale of apples and pears as summer officially comes to an end.
Berry picking is also one of the easiest ways to cajole your children into family fun that is, in some ways, productive and serves as a lesson in “this is where your food comes from.” It is much lower-hanging fruit (pun intended) than a group trip to the local henhouse to watch a farmer dispatch a chicken, yet it serves a similar purpose. In a time when much, if not most, of what people eat is purchased from grocery stores in gleaming packages behind plastic covers, hand-picking food from the vine can teach children about the work it takes to grow, tend, and harvest food from the earth.
Undoubtedly, there will be several “Blueberries for Sal” moments when you bring your littles along—children who often eat more fruit than they harvest. My family has joked for years that there should be a “weigh-in” and a “weigh-out” for kids six and under at the farm stand. If you have a rambunctious crew like mine, you can expect produce rows to be trampled over (accompanied by the incessant tsk-tsking of “Don’t step on the plants!”), berries hurled at siblings (followed by admonishments of “Don’t waste food!”), arguments over who found the biggest and ripest berry (does it really matter?), and the inevitable berry stains—which, after all, are why stain sticks were invented.
There are also many teachable moments to be found in learning the rhythm of the growing seasons. While picking strawberries, you can explain to your child that when we choose only the really red ones, it allows the others to grow sweeter for someone else. Likewise, if we strip a blueberry bush of all its unripe berries, there will be no harvest later in the season. Learning that fresh local berries arrive only at certain times of year also provides excellent fodder for refusing to buy watermelon shipped from South America in the dead of winter. Or maybe I’m the only “mean mother” out there.
Berry picking also offers an opportunity to talk about the cost of shipping food around the world, the carbon footprint it creates, and the importance of supporting Vermont and New England farmers and the local economy. Then, when you leave the grocery store empty-handed after deciding against strawberries in January, you can go home and pull out a freezer bag of berries you lovingly washed, dried, packed, and froze months before. You can serve them to your children while the snow lies deep and silent outside, and dream of those July days when your hands were buried in berry bushes and your basket overflowed with the abundance of summer.
– Jodi Brown is the director of chaos for her New Haven family of four and OB/GYN at Porter Medical Center.
Do you have a story to share about life with young kids in Addison County? We’d love to hear from you! Email [email protected].