True, strawberries, if not the wild ones, cannot be found growing spontaneous in nature. Still, I’d like to include them in this periodical (Finnish nature presents us) because, due to Finnish climate, this berries are particularly tasty here. Why? Well, during summer darkness doesn’t reach us up here and this boosts strawberries growth in an exponential way, making them grow unceasingly.
Besides, free-pollution air (I remember you that Finnish territory consists of forests for two thirds 75%) and free-pesticide policy make those eatable rubies as natural as they can be.
In Finland one can pick strawberries by himself. And no, I don’t mean you have to plant them in your own garden, but simply you can pick them from the fields paying them for little money. So, this is how it works. During summer time, you’ll often find this kind of signs along the road:
When you’ll see one, just follow the directions and you’ll find yourself in the field! Usually those strawberry fields are administrated by families, so you’ll find one family member there ready to give you instructions on which row you should pick your strawberries. Remember to bring with you some buckets. Within only one hour, without any hurry, Klaus and I managed to pick 10 kilos of them, so it’s actually really fast!
There are different reasons why it’s worth picking strawberries:
- they are cheaper (where we picked them they would also sell already picked ones at 50% more than we payed them, that is 4€. However, when the season is ending you can find them at even 1-2€ per kilo and they’ll still be perfect for jams or juices)
- you’ll be able to choose by yourself the strawberries you want
- most probably you’ll be the first one to touch those berries, so there will be avoided handovers and so spreading of bacteria
- fresher than this you can’t get!
“Our strawberry family” has two fields: one just next to their home and the other one some hundreds of meters away (anyways you can’t really have visibility on it cause a forest (oh, really?!) separates them). So our row was located on the other field.
The variety cultivated by that family is called POLKA, that is Fragaria x ananassa, a really sweet one perfect for the Finnish climate since it prefers short summers and long and rigid winters.
You can use strawberries in an infinite variety of ways. We principally froze them (just removing the petioles) in bags of half a kilo each. Mainly we use them in breakfasts blended in smoothies, in porridge or in yogurt. With the ones left we made some pots of jam and simply enjoyed them fresh.
Soon I’ll share with you some recipes in which strawberries play the key role! Stay tuned and subscribe to our newsletter just here below ↓
Tips: you better pick the strawberries keeping the petioles, so to keep them fresh for a longer period of time 🙂
