Good pickings: Raspberry farmer bounces back from strange year

MOSES LAKE — With strawberry season at its end and squash season not for another few months, that leaves a hodgepodge of berries and vegetables ready to pick in the meantime. For Columbia Basin u-pick farms, it’s been an odd season to say the least.

Central Washington’s cold, windy spring was smacked by a June 115-degree heat wave. Regardless of this, the season was already going to be a strange one, said Brie Davis, owner of The Berry Patch, a 1-acre raspberry farm outside of Moses Lake.

Last year showed incredibly slow plant growth, she said, perhaps in part due to the intense smoke.

“It was like everything shut down, plants and people and everything, it was just so bizarre,” she said.

This was a recovery year. Well, supposed to be.

“It just feels like our plants are really confused,” she said.

After early success with raspberries, as well as coordinating with friends who grow strawberries and blueberries, she found her niche.

Davis grows two varieties: Tulameen, a jumbo, sweet berry typically ripe by the end of June, and Autumn Bliss, an everbearing, which produces until the first freeze.

The extra heat has resulted in lots of extra watering, she said.

“We have plenty of time left on the berries, but it’s just been frustrating sitting here watching them not produce when they’re supposed to be producing,” she said.

Davis has lived in Moses Lake for about 12 years, she said, and started her raspberry patch seven years ago as a learning opportunity for her kids.

“We just wanted a way for our kids to learn how to work and be responsible and see how business flows and to learn how to talk to people.”

She has four kids: two going into college, one going into high school and a seventh-grader. The farm has been great for them, she said. It’s year-round prep work.

“My kids have never slept in a day of summer break because they’re always out there picking,” she said.

At first, the family had a booth at the Moses Lake Farmers Market, she said, but now enough people come out and pick at the farm that they don’t have to.

With such an odd year, it’s really anyone’s guess when the Tulameens may be ready, she said. It’s likely the two varieties may sync up their seasons, and be ready around August for people to pick.

That’s the best part, she said: the people.

“We’ve been able to connect with our community, and I feel like that is the greatest part of it, is that we give a service to our community,” she said. “We just have great relationships with people, and some people just come out to pick to get away from their space and to be able to decompress. We have great conversations in the raspberry patch. It’s fantastic.”

Sam Fletcher can be reached via email at sfletcher@columbiabasinherald.com.