Strawberry Pickers Soon Eat Their Fill

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28753, 26 November 1958, Page 2

Strawberry Pickers Soon Eat Their Fill

Tasting a warm strawberry straight from its sunny bed at the berry farm of Mr and Mrs A. R. Alloway, Leithfleld, was a delightful experience yesterday.

In answer to the classic question, “How do the pickers stop eating them?” Mrs Alloway said that the urge to eat one’s fill subsided very soon when one was surrounded by strawberries all day. The smell of them rising from the leafy patch was enough to bring the taste of fresh cream and icing sugar to the mouth, but the 14 women pickers in the patch yesterday had obviously acquired strong resistance to the tempting harvest..

This was also true of the children who played around the edge of the patch while their mothers worked in the field. Mrs Alloway chooses mature women from the district around Leithfleld to gather the fruit. “Young people want to come strawberry picking with one idea in mind—to eat the strawberries,” she said. They were also less careful about picking the berries in the specially gentle way that prevented bruising. The fruit was so perishable that the utmost care in handling was far more important than speedy picking, she said. Unimpressed

Most of the pickers were mothers with children—some at school and some whom they brought with, them to the farm. At first the children wanted to wander down the strawberry rows to their mothers and keot asking for strawberries, but they soon learned to keep off the patch and be good, said Mrs Alloway. Yesterday they seemed quite as unimpressed as old hands with the abundance of luscious berries under their noses. Mrs Alloway’s niece had to be coaxed to get off her tricycle and pose with a strawberry for her photograph. She then casually handed back the berry to her mother. Each morning Mrs Alloway checks the weather and if it is a good day telephones for pickers to come along. They arrive early in the morning and pick all day, moving on their knees between the rows of plants on the one-and-a-half-acre strawberry patch. Yesterday was a good picking

day, although it would have been better for the fruit if it had been cooler. Ideal conditions were a dry atmosphere. Berries must not be picked on a wet day or when there was any dampness in the air because they went mushy and spoiled in the packing, Mrs Alloway said. “At the end of your first day picking strawberries you can scarcely sit down. You feel as if you’ve been riding a horse,” said a woman picker who was new at the game and who remembered the pains in her back, thighs and knees, but these discomforts soon disappeared when the body became used to the crouching position and the rhythm of picking, the women said. Most of the women wore dungarees, sandshoes and well-padded knee protectors stuffed with foam or honey-combed rubber. Large shady hats or peaked caps kept the hot sun off their bent necks and heads. Skill Needed

A woman who has picked at the farm for three seasons illustrated the skill needed to “pick on the stem.” She deftly pressed back the leaves of the plant and cupped her hand round the berry which she pointed downwards; a quick nip on the stem half an inch above the fruit dropped it gently into her hand; a quick movement transferred the berry into a punnet in her wooden carrying frame in perfect condition. Some experienced pickers used one hand, some used both. The more experienced workers picked from a row on each side of them as they moved forward on their knees. Some less practised seemed to get along better moving up one row on one knee.

Pickers must sort the fruit as they go. Part of their job is to pick off the spoiled berries and the runners. It is most important to clear away the mushed or moulded berries because they spoil other healthy berries and are liable to transmit a virus to the plant. The women said how much they enjoyed the company of community picking. They found it good fun as well as financially rewarding. They earned 6d for each punnet picked, and an average day’s pickings for a worker was about 10 crates. Mrs Alloway said. Twelve punnets went to a crate.

“I really look forward to strawberry picking season; it seems to get in your blood,” said an old hand at the work. Sorting

Each picker gathers into her own crate and is responsible for sorting the berries into dessert (large) sizes, jam (smaller) sizes, throw-outs (which go to feed the pigs) and bruised or bird-pecked discards which the pickers may take home. The Alloway farm grows Melba and Chapman varieties.

It had been a very good season partly because of the warm weather and partly because of the success of the irrigation scheme and the care given to the soil and plants, Mrs Alloway said. Growing strawberries commercially was a ticklish business, she said, and the soil tester’s instructions on feeding the soil were adhered to to the last ounce of manure. The soil had to be well aerated and wee3s kept down, and there were many hazards to the growth of fruit such as red spider and grass grub, which attacked delicate roots. Straw was placed between the rows to prevent fruit becoming soggy and coated with earth. Eleven months’ care culminated in one month’s picking, she said. Mrs Alloway, who was a trained nurse before her marriage, said she knew nothing about gardening in any form when she and her husband started the farm five years ago with 350 strawberry plants. They also grow root vegetables, asparagus, and raspberries. Trucks waiting in the shade were gradually filling with crates of sweet-smelling berries. They will be ready for Christchurch tables today.