Strawberry Picking at Brocksbushes in Northumberland

Another adventure on my North East bucket list ticked off, we have finally been strawberry picking at Brocksbushes Farm Shop in Northumberland (it's only taken me five Summers to get myself there!) and it really was everything that I had hoped it would be.

There are very few parts of my childhood that I remember clearly (I don't have the best memory!) but something that has always stuck with me is strawberry picking. I remember as clear as day skipping about the strawberry fields with my sisters, picking handfuls of bright red fruit and stuffing as many as we could into our mouths before our Mum caught us. Strawberry picking as children definitely involved more eating than it did picking!

Strawberry picking at Brocksbushes was on my radar before I even moved to the North East, their pick your own farm is very well known in the region, in fact if you asked me where else you can go in the North East to pick strawberries I wouldn't have a clue!

The strawberry fields at Brocksbushes opened at the beginning of June and after a very sunny start to the month I'll admit I was a little worried that we'd struggle to find any ripe strawberries for picking. It certainly felt like everyone on my social media was at Brocksbushes filling up baskets of strawberries - had they picked them all?

We turned up on a pretty cloudy day (a good way to ensure the fields aren't too overcrowded with others picking!) and made our way to the little pick your own shed to pay our £1.00 entrance fees and collect our little basket. Asked how many baskets we wanted we were very sensible to ask for just the one - with only two mouths to feed we didn't want to end up going home with a truck full of fruit!

Once we'd paid our deposit for our basket we were shown where to find the strawberries and given some helpful tips on which areas had the most amount of fruit.

I'll admit I thought that we'd have to trek a pretty long way up the field to discover the best berries but we'd only taken a few steps before we discovered loads of juicy ripe red strawberries ready for picking.

Diving between the rows of plants, carefully peering between the leaves to hunt out the very best we had a fantastic time picking our fruit and it definitely is a little addictive. I don't know what it is about picking strawberries that's so great - maybe it's the peace and quiet, being out in the fresh air or that rare chance of being able to pick your own food but strawberry picking at Brocksbushes was the most enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.

I wish so much I was good in the kitchen and could rustle up a strawberry tart or make my own jam, but knowing that our skills are pretty limited we made sure we picked just enough to enjoy with some ice-cream over the weekend and for me to throw on top of my cereal. I do usually buy a punnet at the supermarket every week so it was a lovely change to have some proper fresh Northumbrian strawberries to enjoy.

Our basket of strawberries cost us £3.80, an absolute bargain and I'm quite tempted to go back every week in the Summer to keep us well stocked!

Find Brocksbushes at:

Brocksbushes Farm
Northumberland
NE43 7UB

http://www.brocksbushes.co.uk/