Emma Lea Farms U-Pick Strawberries

One thing that is really important to me is making sure my kids know where food, real food, comes from. And, just to be clear, food does not simply come from a grocery store.

We have our front yard garden as a way for the kids to see how their efforts can help produce food. We also make a point of talking about what farms are as we drive by them so that the kids can see what it means to grow food on a commercial scale.

Admittedly, we have not yet had the conversation about how chickens, pigs, or cows become meat. However, we have visited small local chicken farms where they have chickens running around the yard and collected eggs. I figure this is a pretty safe way to introduce them to how animals contribute to our food the food that is on our tables.

Today we went out to a u-pick strawberry farm – we visited Emma Lea Farms on Westham Island in Ladner.

This was a chance for the girls to see exactly how food is grown and then harvested before being brought home and turned into food that we eat. I saw this as an opportunity for them to better understand how their efforts contribute to the food that is on our table.

Of course a side benefit of our visit to the farm was that we came home with about 20 pounds of absolutely amazingly fresh, local strawberries that taste delicious.

There is no California strawberry that has the flavour of a strawberry grown locally, picked by your own hands and then brought home to your table that same day. The perfect looking California grown berries simply do nor compare to our locally grown treasures.

As well as strawberries, Emma Lea Farms is also set up with blueberries, raspberries and the ultra-delicious Tayberries.

Those berries are not yet ready but the strawberries are in season. And people are flocking to Westham Island to pick them.

We were out there around noon today and although there was a light sprinkle of rain it was basically warm and dry while we picked. With the my Sweetheart and our two kids we managed to fill three flat boxes relatively quickly.

Once the boxes were full we went back to the front of the farm where they have it set up really nicely for families.

This is what differentiates successful farm gate sales from the less successful ones. Emma Lea Farms has swingsets, slides, climbing walls, a sandbox and all sorts of stuff for kids to play with. They also have for your convenience all sorts of canned or pickled goods and fresh baby potatoes near the till ready to be purchased.

Of course they also have soft serve ice cream, milkshakes and other delicious treats available for you to purchase. And if you don’t want to go out in the field to pick your own berries, you can purchase berries that are already picked.

At the end of the day, our experience at Emma Lea Farms was very positive. The girls better understand where the food that we eat comes from and they appreciate the labour that goes into getting food from the field to the table.

Hopefully today’s experience helps them be a little bit more empathetic to the people who grow, produce and harvest the food that we purchase in grocery stores.