{"id":40559,"date":"2023-12-30T19:43:12","date_gmt":"2023-12-31T00:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=40559"},"modified":"2023-12-30T19:43:17","modified_gmt":"2023-12-31T00:43:17","slug":"farmer-opens-u-pick-strawberry-experience-for-kids-and-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/12\/30\/farmer-opens-u-pick-strawberry-experience-for-kids-and-families\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmer opens “U-Pick” strawberry experience for kids and families"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Welcome to Berry Sweet Acres<\/a>. The \u201cU-Pick\u201d spot opened in mid-December.<\/p>\n\n\n

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It\u2019s strawberry picking time at the nearly 4-acre plot off U.S. Hwy. 92 in Plant City. How many strawberries will the area produce in one season?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis whole block should probably do \u2014 if my math is correct \u2014 about 100-140,000 pounds,\u201d said Matt Parke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parke and his wife, Kandice, own the land and have a \u201cbarntique,\u201d for (included but not limited to) clothing, home decor, locally made candles and berry jewelry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parke and his family also have been a part of Plant City\u2019s strawberry farming community for generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When picking strawberries, your first instinct might be to twist and pull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parke grasps a strawberry lightly and bends it: it pops right off. This all started as one-off a few years ago at the end of the season. The response to opening the field to visitors was surprising to Parke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had a super big draw. People coming from all over the place, they were so excited to be here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they had lots of questions. This interest edified Parke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA lot of people just think you go to the store and there it is. It comes from the store,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parke is there to explain the fruit\u2019s journey before it hits the store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKids are more educated on what we do out here in the agricultural world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seeing kids happily picking berries reminds him of his own childhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was privileged in that way,\u201d Parke said. \u201cI was raised, you know, not in the cities, but out here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a privilege he wants to pass on to other families \u2014 even if it\u2019s just for a few hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust having a good time out here, running around,\u201d said Parke. \u201cJust being a kid.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Berry Sweet Acres. The \u201cU-Pick\u201d spot opened in mid-December. It\u2019s strawberry picking time at the nearly 4-acre plot off U.S. Hwy. 92 in Plant City. How many strawberries will the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[7163],"class_list":["post-40559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-farmer-opens-u-pick-strawberry-experience-for-kids-and-families"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}