Shown, left, berry picker Marilee Redpath at the Battle River Berries U Pick, and, right, Sheena Seib with her daughter Lily, at Seib's Berry Farm. (Submitted photos/Battle River Berries U Pick and Seib's Berry Farm)

By Angela Brown

Robust berries and cherries

U-Picks seeing bountiful year in Battlefords area

Aug 14, 2022 | 3:26 PM

Battlefords area U-Pick farms are reporting a very good production this summer, with help from warm weather and intermittent rainfall.

From Seib’s Berry Farm , Sheena Seib said the family farm owned by her father Everett is doing well.

The fruit is produced on seven acres in total, consisting of five acres of saskatoon berry crops and two acres of sour cherries.

The farm has about 2,500 saskatoon berry bushes and over 500 cherry trees altogether.

Sheena Seib said the saskatoon crop is now winding down after having a successful year, while the sour cherries picking season has just started.

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The saskatoon picking usually begins in July and finishes around mid-August.

“It depends on the year,” Seib said. “This year it went for about three weeks. It started around the 15th or so [of July]. They are a little bit hard to pick now, but there are some left.”

Shown are Everett Seib, owner of Seib’s Berry Farm, left, and Nicole Entz, co-owner of Battle River Berries U Pick, right, at their U Pick farms. Entz is Leah King’s daughter. (Submitted photos/Everett Seib and Battle River Berries U-Pick Facebook respectively)

The quality of the fruit this year has been particularly good.

“The saskatoons were very large,” Seib said. “They had a lot of moisture this year.”

She added there was also sufficient rainfall and heat during the season.

“The heat kind of brings on the berries and makes them ripen faster,” Seib said. “So there was just enough rain at the right time. They do get extra supplemental water as well. All of that kind of combined together to make them really large and lush this year.”

For the sour cherries, she said they are looking very good, and getting plump and ripe.

“There are quite a few there; they are nice and dark red.”

The farm’s saskatoons and sour cherries both matured about a week later than usual.

“We found that everything in the fields has been a little bit later this year,” Seib said.

As a positive, Seib said the U-Pick has been busy overall this season, with plenty of customers visiting the farm.

“You can just come and pick. We’re open from 8 a.m. till dusk basically during the season,” she said.

Seib’s Berry Farm is located 10 miles northeast of North Battleford. To get there, people can drive four miles north on Highway 4, turn right at Highway 378, and go five miles east. Then, turn right again and travel half a mile south on Grid Road 3160 to reach the farm, which is situated next to Seib’s Electrical Repair.

The farm also offers fresh vegetables, as well as frozen Saskatchewan cherries, frozen saskatoons, jellies, syrups and tart cherry juice.

Battle River Berries U Pick

Battle River Berries U Pick is also having a strong season this year.

Co-owner Leah King said this is the family’s third summer owning the
U-Pick operation.

“The fruit has been incredible this year,” she said. “We have so much fruit. The sour cherries are still going, the raspberries are still coming.”

As far as the rest of the crop goes – strawberries, haskap berries and saskatoons – they are all finished now for the season.

“This year we started around the first week of July,” King said. “It was a little bit later than normal years because of our cold spring.”

She added the family did a lot of pruning in the spring, which may have helped give the crop an added boost. King noted the sour cherries in particular have exceeded their expectations.

“It’s crazy,” she said.”The quality of the fruit is amazing. We have so much more sour cherries than we’ve ever had before.”

The sour cherry picking started a few weeks ago, while the saskatoon berry season has just wrapped up.

“The saskatoons were big,” King said. “Everybody was saying even the wild [saskatoons] were big… We had enough rain; we had enough heat.”

The whole orchard is about 10 acres in size, with two long rows of sour cherries, about 10 rows of saskatoons, five of raspberries, 10 of haskap berries, and about five rows of strawberries.

The operation saw many more customers placing orders to receive
pre-picked fruit this year.

“We couldn’t keep up with the amount of people calling, wanting us to pick, compared to them coming out to U-Pick,” King said.

She added the farm also saw some big orders this summer.

“We just picked one order for one customer for 400 pounds of sour cherries, and they are making wine with it.”

While most of the fruit was all available for U-Pick, the family didn’t open up the U-Pick for strawberries this year but may look at doing that next year.

King said, overall, all the crop turned out better than last year, with mainly good weather and some added watering.

“Even though last year we had a very good season, we had a way better season this year…,” she said.

Battle River Berries U-Pick is located off Highway 29, just about 10 minutes outside of Battleford, heading towards Wilkie. People are asked to follow the signs posted on the left side of Highway 29 that will lead them to the farm.

Those planning to come for a U-Pick trip are asked to call ahead, to book a time to make sure someone is there to meet them when they arrive.

“We appreciate everybody coming out and supporting our local business,” King said.

–

Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW