Songjiang farms busy as strawberry time arrives

Delicious, fresh strawberries from the Songjiang farms

Zhang Li and Tan Weiyun

IT’s that time of the year again to enjoy bites of fresh, succulent strawberries.

As shanghai’s fruit and vegeta-ble producer, songjiang District has lots of juicy berries to offer this season.

At the Green Rainbow Farm in Yexie Town, farmer are busy plucking and loading ripe straw-berries, while cutting off old leaves to give more ventilation for the maturing ones.

The farm is a planting base for two breeds of strawberries, “Hongyan” and “Zhangji,” which together cover about 2 hectares.

“Hongyan tastes more juicy and sweeter with tender flesh in a milky flavor. It’s the most popu-lar among our clients,” said Zheng Hailan, the farm’s manager.

To protect the vulnerable fruit from frost and cold-air attack, the farmers have laid thermo-plastic insulation films on the strawberries.

“We’ve also set up the shelves. If the temperature falls to below zero degree, the second film will be added,” Zheng said.

The farm is open to tourists to pick the fruit by themselves.

“It’s easy. Hold the strawberry gently and twist the stem swiftly. It’s off,” said one farmer on site, who was eager to share his best way to pick a strawberry.

Strawberry-themed activities on the farm are a big lure for urban dwellers, such as making strawberry cake, strawberry milk shake and candied strawberry sticks.

At the Wanying ecological Farm in shihudang Town, red berries are at the height of their season. shen Wanying quit her job in a Japanese electronics enterprise and returned to her home vil-lage to take over her father’s farm 12 years ago. The 45-year-old does farming as a business, with detailed management and machinery modernization.

“Our strawberries are grown organically with bees as the pol-linators,” she said.

She promises to same-day de-livery of the fruit to keep them as fresh as possible.