Closed for the winter - reopening the 24th of September 2026
If you’ve visited The Berry Dairy before, you may have noticed that not every strawberry looks identical.
Some are small. Some are wonky. Some have funny shapes.
And, if we’re being honest, our strawberry patch isn’t always perfectly weed-free either.
That’s because our goal has never been to grow the most perfect-looking strawberries possible. Our goal is to grow delicious, spray-free strawberries while working with the farm environment and continually improving how we manage the crop.
That approach involves a lot more time, a lot more manual work and, sometimes, accepting that nature doesn’t always produce perfect results.
At The Berry Dairy, our strawberries are grown spray-free, which means we rely heavily on careful management, natural helpers and a lot of hands-on work rather than routine pesticide spraying.
One of the most important jobs is simply walking the patch.
Throughout the season, we regularly remove overripe, damaged and mouldy fruit before it can encourage disease to spread through the crop. It’s labour-intensive work, but it’s one of the most important ways we keep our strawberry plants healthy.
We plant alyssum around the strawberry patch to attract beneficial insects such as ladybirds, lacewings and predatory mites, which help control pests naturally.
At the same time, bees and other pollinators visit the strawberry flowers and play a critical role in fruit development.
When every part of a flower is pollinated evenly, the result is the classic strawberry shape we all recognise. If pollination isn’t perfect, the fruit can grow into funny, fused or “wonky” shapes.
The good news? Those strawberries taste exactly the same.
Our farm sits in a naturally windy location.
Strong winds can occasionally damage plants, but the airflow also has benefits. Leaves and fruit dry more quickly after rain, reducing humidity around the plants and helping lower the risk of fungal diseases.
Sometimes, the challenges of farming can also become part of the solution.
Visitors are often surprised to see plastic mulch covering our strawberry beds.
The plastic plays an important role by helping to:
Between the rows, we use weedmat topped with woodchip to further suppress weeds and reduce the amount of hand weeding required.
Even with these systems in place, weed control still takes an enormous amount of manual work.
Our strawberries are grown on raised beds, which improve drainage and create healthier conditions around the roots.
When we redeveloped the patch in 2026, we installed new irrigation lines to help water the plants more efficiently and consistently throughout the season.
Every improvement we make comes from lessons learnt in previous years.
In 2026, we planted 30,000 new strawberry plants by hand.
The patch includes both traditional bare-root runners and plug plants, which we hope will help spread production more evenly across the season.
Our runners come from certified growers, helping ensure the plants arrive healthy, productive and free from known diseases.
The work doesn’t stop once they’re planted. Every plant is pruned, weeded, maintained and eventually picked by hand.
Each winter, our established strawberry plants are pruned back heavily.
Removing the old leaves allows fresh, healthy growth to emerge ahead of spring production.
It can look dramatic at the time, but it’s an important part of preparing the plants for another season.
Many people are surprised to learn that strawberries don’t continue ripening after they’ve been picked.
That’s why we encourage visitors to choose fully red fruit.
A strawberry generally takes around four to six weeks to develop from a flower into a ripe berry, and sunshine helps the plant produce natural sugars.
That’s one reason strawberries often taste sweeter and juicier after a run of sunny weather.
Not every strawberry makes it into a punnet.
Overripe fruit, damaged berries and strawberry tops from the café don’t go to landfill—they’re fed to our cows instead.
It’s a small way we can reduce waste and make use of fruit that would otherwise be discarded.
Growing strawberries this way takes time.
It means more walking, more weeding, more pruning and more attention to detail.
The patch won’t always be completely weed-free, and every strawberry won’t be perfectly shaped.
But for us, that’s part of farming.
Every season, we’re learning, adapting and looking for ways to grow great-tasting strawberries while working with nature rather than against it.