Alex is back in strawberry harvest and we’re STOKED.

Last week, I got a call from Alex that he was back in the strawberry game. If you’ve been with us since May or so you saw what happened with the recent strawberry crop. They went from big and extremely tasty strawberries to delicious-but-SO-PERISHABLE-you-had-to-eat-them-in-a-day-strawberries. After listening with you guys, we had to tell Alex that wouldn’t be able to use his strawberries anymore and he was super bummed.

From July till now Alex has been working hard pruning back his plants, removing all the red and green strawberries, feeding them, and watching them transform. He said it took a solid week of 12 guys working to get the plants under control. And after two months, he’s back into a full strawberry production. His plants are healthy, strong, and the fruit is flavorful and feeling more firm, giving us a longer shelf life.

Yesterday I got to spend some time talking with Alex while he sorted heirloom tomatoes in his warehouse. I told him I was going to write a story this week about his strawberry default and he wasn’t too stoked on it. But when I told him this was his time to tell his story this is what he said. “Strawberries have two cycles. The first cycle is really strong and the plants are vigorous and produce a lot. But after that first pick the fruit gets smaller and smaller. While the get smaller, the also get more fragile and are more susceptible to bugs and insects. And with the really warm nights, they’re extremely perishable. BUT they’re super tasty. Most bigger farms would just call the first big pick done and disc the field under. That is how the big boys do it in Oxnard. But small farming is not like that and we stick things out longer. I wanted that second, third, forth pick so I put in the time to clean up our plants and now it’s paying off because the cycle is going again. I’m thankful you guys are here to tell the story.

Last year we witnessed a very similar problem with Alex’s strawberries when they were swarmed with bees. Click here to read the story for that.

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