This morning, as I was browsing to see if there is any local farm’s market around San Antonio that is open, found the Marburger Orchard. It is located right outside of Fredericksburg off of Highway 87.

Marburger Orchard offers Strawberries, Peaches, Blackberries and some vegetables for public picking. The price for picking strawberries is $2.25/lb, plus a one-time charge of $0.50 for the re-useable picking box. The owner told us that they have return customers who have kept and reused the picking boxes for the last three years. Each box can hold about 6-7 lbs. worth of produce. That is more than enough to enjoy for yourself and plenty to share with family and friends.

They told us there was a huge turn out yesterday and over 800 lbs worth of strawberries were picked. They are expecting to have about 200-300 lbs of ripen strawberries ready for picking today. So always call ahead to check and see if there are enough for picking before you go and check if they might close early.

The owner had samples of strawberries that were the “properly ripen” ones to show us how to carefully look for the good strawberries to pick and learn not to pick the ones that are not completely ripen. You basically want to turn the strawberry to see if there are any white/light areas, if there is, then it is not completely ripen. Shoot for the deep red color ones, and leave the others time to ripen for future picking. Do not pick the unripe ones since they do not continue to ripe after bring picked, even though they might become redder in color. They also said DON’T wash the berries until you are ready to use them. Washing makes the berries more prone to spoiling. I found a pretty good source for making jam. So I might report back if I ended up making my own strawberry jam!

After the quick picking-lesson, I am ready to pick some delicious strawberries! Jeremy had his photo gear ready to snap some beautiful orchard photos for our stock photo site. There are lots of peach trees in bloom and a little patch of wild flower with lots of butterflies around. I am just smiling from ear-to-ear trying not to skip my way to the strawberry field.

Another point that the owner (sorry, I never did catch his name) shared was that a lot of farmers hesitate to open their orchards for public picking because some people abuse the orchards. Since it is you-buy-what-you-picked, a lot of people will pick a lot and then sort out what they really wanted to keep and throw the other (ugly, unripe) ones on the orchard floor. When people do not stick to the proper ways of picking, they not only take away the chances for others to pick, but also destroy the plants themselves. Which is a big lose for the farmers. This is a great family event, and I see lots of kids out picking with their parents, this is a good chance for the parents to educate their children. Do not cross the plants rows and stump on the plants and plastics that protect the soil. I would greatly urge people to be considerate and keep these wonderful orchards open to public picking by learning the right techniques and also educate your children to be respectful to the plants.

I had a blast, it was a good exercise kneeing down and standing up to pick among the beautiful strawberry plants. I worked up quite a sweat, but the light sprinkle of mist/rain from the sky kept me cool. A sunny day would have been beautiful too, but I would have needed a good hat to keep me cool.

I have filled the picking box full of strawberries after one hour of going through a few rows. It is weighing time… I picked 7.57 lbs of strawberries! Definitely need to give some to Jason’s family, and some to our clients.

Like their website said, most mapping programs are not yet 100% accurate in pinpointing their location. I have created my own Google My Maps to locate the entrance exactly where it is, so you know where to go. Google Map took us further down someone’s driveway that does not have a lot of room for turn around, so please refer to my map below for directions instead of what is listed on the regular Google Map. You can even see some of the peach tree fields on this map~

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