alafarmnews

Strawberry fields attract
u-pickers by the bus loads
by Jaine Treadwell

Bill Deloney has had a lifelong love affair with strawberries.

It started when he was a young boy plucking the luscious, red fruit in his grandma’s spring garden and standing there in the warm sunshine eating a berry so sweet and juicy that it was almost sinful.

Some years ago, a neighbor planted "a row or so" of strawberries that produced "not as many as me and him could eat," Deloney said. "That was about 16 years ago and the next year I decided to plant enough strawberries that I could eat all I wanted," he said.

So, in 1989, Deloney planted strawberries on a "small" scale — 8,000 plants on a half-acre — and opened a u-pick operation in his hometown of Ozark in Dale County. Today, Deloney has all the strawberries he can eat and enough for "half of South Alabama."

Deloney Farms’ strawberry patch covers three acres "and boasts 50,000 plants. The farm is a u-pick, we-pick, out-the-door family operation.

Kaylee Roth of Daleville proves redheads and strawberries just naturally go together. She picked a pint to take home from Deloney Farms, but ate most of the berries before she left the field.

Bill Deloney owns and operates a family farming operation in Ozark. His granddaughter Nikki Deloney is usually at his side, packaging the “we pick” berries that are secondary to the u-pick operation. In peak season, the Deloneys will sell 50 or more gallons of we-picks a day and the pickers will take home around 200 gallons.

Most of Deloney’s strawberries go out the door of the small, wood-framed strawberry house as u-picks or "y’all picks," up to 200 gallons a day in peak season – and, that’s in addition to the 50 or so gallons of "we-picks."

Picking begins around the middle of March with peak season in April and running until around the first of June. "Unless the weather is bad, we’ll have a bunch of pickers every day," Deloney said. "We have a good number of school groups that come out. I talk to them about growing strawberries. Then, they each pick a pint of berries to take home."

A group of first-graders from A.M. Windham Elementary School in Daleville arrived in three buses and were after strawberries "like bees to honey." They weren’t timid about popping berries in their mouths or wiping the juice on their shirts.

"Kids," Deloney said, laughing. "They are different from grownups. Grown folks will be out here picking and I can see them look toward the shed to see if anybody’s looking. Then, they’ll turn their backs and

you can see their hand go to their mouth. I don’t care how many strawberries they eat. That’s part of the fun of picking your own."

Deloney, laughing, said he often teases his "pickers" that he’s going to weigh them before they go in the field and again when they come out and charge them accordingly.

"I like to see people enjoy themselves out here," he said. "Not many people grow up on farms anymore. This just gives them a little ‘taste’ of the farm."

The pickers get to do the easy work. The hard work begins in October with the preparation of the land. "We use methobromine to fumigate the soil," Deloney said. "It kills insects and plant diseases in the soil. Then we lay the plastic. We’ve found that the plasticulture technique works best for us. The plastic holds in the moisture and keeps out the weeds. It also keeps the berries clean. It’s the dickens to take up but it’s a good method for planting and picking."

Deloney Farms irrigates its strawberry plants with a drip system and also uses the system to fertilize the plants. "We use Pro-Sol, a water soluble fertilizer, and it works really good for us," he said.

Deloney plants the Chandler variety of strawberries. They hold better and have an excellent taste, he said.

All the planting is done by hand and primarily by migrant workers. "When we used domestic pickers, it took seven people two weeks — ten days — to plant 30,000 plants," he said. "With migrant workers, 15 workers can plant 50,000 plants in two-and-half hours.

Krista Amos, a student at A.M. Windham Elementary School in Daleville, visited Deloney Farms’ strawberry fields with her class. She quickly learned that it’s impossible to pick and not eat.

"We use Captan, a fungicide —about three pounds to the acre — and we usually apply it twice during the season. It’s a very safe fungicide that is used on a lot of fruit — peaches and apples. It protects the plants against brown rot. The more rain you get the more times you have to spray against brown rot. We usually begin application when the plants begin to bloom."

Rain is not wanted in a strawberry field. It keeps pickers out and it doesn’t improve the quality of the berries or increase production. "Strawberries don’t need rain," Deloney said "They do best when you put the water to them, but

we don’t sit around and hope for dry weather because other crops need it. We certainly support all of our farmers. We can’t do without them."

The biggest danger to a strawberry crop is a spring frost. "We have a drip water system under the plastic but we’ve also got a sprinkler system over the top," Deloney said. "We run it all day on the plants during the first two weeks. That gives them ample moisture to put down a good root system. If it comes a frost, we turn on the sprinklers and that keeps the frost melted off. Unless the temperature drops below 27 degrees, we can protect the plants from frost. If it goes below that, we’ve got trouble."

Deloney lost his set crop to a frost a couple of years ago when the temperature dropped to 22 degrees. "The sprinkler system couldn’t help us then," he said. "We set another crop and that kept us from being completely washed up. But frost can kill a strawberry crop."

As the season neared its end, Deloney’s son began to dread what was ahead. "The tough part is coming," Lee Deloney said. "We spray with Round Up to kill the plants and then we take the plastic up. That’s the real job — taking up the plastic and hauling it off. That brings the strawberry season to a close."

That might be the end of the season, but it’s not the end of strawberries for the Deloneys and those who frequent their farm. "We’ll have strawberries all year long," Deloney said. "We’ve got a freezer full for strawberry shortcake, strawberries and cream, strawberry pies and ice cream. And, we’ve got strawberry jam."

The pickers will have berries for all those things, too, if they didn’t eat the berries before they got home. "A lot of people leave here with bucket of berries between them" Deloney said, laughing. "And they eat them all the way home." They are that good — these homegrown, u-pick berries.

Deloney Farms is located south of Ozark, two miles south on Alabama Highway 27.

Jaine Treadwell is a freelance writer from Brundidge.

Jamala Moore’s first grade class at A.M. Windham Elementary School in Daleville visited Deloney Farms in May. They learned all about growing strawberries and then picked a pint each. To a kid, they said that strawberries are their favorite fruit.