How to pick: We supply punnets for picking, however we encourage you to bring your own plastic containers to reduce plastic use, plus we offer a discount of 10p a kg when you do! Lots of small containers for PYO are better than one large one, as soft fruit will easily bruise and squash at the bottom of a deep container. We supply trays to carry all your picking containers on-site. Gently pinch the green stalk about half a centimetre up from the fruit and place the strawberry in your punnet. Try not to touch the strawberry itself as they bruise very easily, and this will make them go mushy.
Ready picked: If picking is not for you then we have a skilled team of professionals in the fields who pick our best every single day. You can find our ready-picked fruit in the Farm Shop fridges. If you would like to order a large volume of fruit or vegetables for an event, we’ll be happy to help. Please contact us using our contact form or call the shop on 01865 358 309.
What we grow: We grow lots of different strawberry varieties so we can offer you the very best tasting strawberries all year-round. The Rectory Farm strawberry season starts with our Vibrant variety, grown in our ‘cosy’ tunnels. These polytunnels have doors on them to keep them warm over winter. Vibrant are glossy, conical in shape and very sweet. They are a softer variety of strawberry so they don’t last as well in the fridge, but as we pick and sell them on the same day or next day, this poses no problem. You won’t find this variety in the supermarket for this very reason.
In early June we move to our main cropping season with Malling Centenary, Sonata, Finesse, and Symphony strawberries. The Centenary and Sonata are 60-day plants, which means we see strawberries growing 60-days from planting. This also means that we can stagger our planting to produce strawberries all summer long – and beyond. Finesse are an everbearer, which means that they start producing fruit once we have 12 hours of good sunlight and continue to crop until the days get shorter again. Symphony is our hardy variety and the crop you will find on the floor of our straw beds: delicious, slightly tangy, dark red and very good for jam!
