Strawberry fields thriving in hot summer weather

For many, British summertime means barbecues in the rain, dodging wasps at picnics and watching Wimbledon with a glass of Pimm's and the quintessential snack: strawberries and cream.

At the beginning of April, industry body the British Berry Growers predicted this season's strawberry crop would be sweeter than usual.

The organisation, which represents the UK's commercial soft fruit growers, said this year's strawberries would also arrive about a week early because of unusually high sunshine levels.

But has this borne true for Yorkshire's strawberry farmers?

In Horsforth, Leeds, Joe Kemp of Kemp's Farm runs a pick your own strawberry field, and says his produce is definitely sweeter than in other years.

"It's been really sweet this year. It's been an absolutely amazing start of the season with how hot and warm it's been this year. A lot better than last year.

"More sunlight equals more sun photosynthesis, which means more sugar."

Mr Kemp says the fruit crop has also come earlier this year.

"About two weeks earlier in fact," he says.

"Last year, I think it was the 29 June we opened, whereas this year it was the 10 June.

But the hot weather has had an effect on the other seasonal crops at the farm.

"For the pumpkins, it's been a bit of an issue. We've had to water those. We've never had to water pumpkins before, growing in the ground.

"But the strawberries, they're already irrigated. There wasn't much of a problem for those."

The farm has been open for 42 years, and in the last decade they have begun focusing more on the pick your own side of the business.

"There's 32 acres, of which there's 12km of table-top strawberries, which equates to about seven acres," he says.

"Then the raspberries, blackberries, the 17 acres of pumpkins, then wildflowers and sunflowers.

"On a really busy weekend we can have around 2,000 people a day in for strawberries."

Also in Leeds, Micklefield-based farmer Annabel Makin-Jones sells strawberries to a completely different market.

Annabel's Deliciously British brand supplies supermarkets Booths and Ocado, but also five-star restaurants and the Royal Family.

She says extremely hot weather is not good for strawberries.

"When it's really hot, they ripen really quickly, so they're smaller and you don't get the sugar content. That's why American strawberries and Spanish strawberries taste dreadful," she says.

"The reason British ones are the best is because it's a slower period of time that they ripen over and it allows the sugars to accumulate so they don't ripen too quickly."

She adds that it is impossible to judge a season's worth of strawberries, with each week producing a different taste.

"It all depends on the weather in the week that they ripen and they get picked," she says.

"The weather this week is different to last week. So if we have 18 to 22 degrees, brilliant. If we have 32 degrees like we had on Sunday, then they ripen too quickly.

"It's not the whole season overall. Your strawberries are not the same from May to October."

Ms Makin-Jones says her strawberries are about the story behind the product.

"When you just go and pick up a punnet of strawberries off a supermarket shelf, you've got no idea how it was grown, who grew it. Stack it high, sell it cheap, is basically what they do, and this is very different.

"I've been a strawberry farmer for 22 years.

"People, when they do their weekly shop, if they know where something's come from, and they know it's a family business, and they can see the person behind it, and it's honest, and it's trustworthy, people buy into that," she says.

The Balloon Tree is a cafe and farm shop with pick your own fields just outside York.

Managing director Matthew Machin says the farm has been running a pick your own site for 43 years, and a cafe and shop for 21.

They sell tonnes of fruit, including strawberries - and agree that the warm, dry weather has been good for sweetness.

"This year, because of the sunshine, has probably been one of the best years ever for the sweetness of strawberries," he says.

"There's not been much rain so most of our strawberries are under tunnels, but the ones which aren't, because we've had very little rain, they've thrived really, they've stayed very good quality all season."

He says the kind of customers have changed, with more people coming for the experience than the fruit.

"We don't really get the traditional jamming people who used to come in and buy for jam. It's more of a family experience," he says.

With the strawberries being so sweet, he says, they're perfect for that classic Wimbledon snack.

"Honestly, the best thing you can have strawberries with is just the simple cream," he says.

"And you shouldn't, this time of year, because it is the main season, have to add any sugar. The strawberry is sweet enough just with the cream. It's going to be perfect."

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