Everett Seib, pictured here with one of the many berry bushels covering about five acres of the Seib’s Berry Farm. (Submitted photo/Everett Seib)

By Martin Martinson

Berry picking season

Seib’s Berry Farm offers berries ripe for the picking

Jul 28, 2019 | 8:00 AM

Typically, late July marks the end of the berry-picking season. This year, however, Everett Seib says the season is much later.

Seib is the owner of Seib’s Berry Farm, which offers berry picking with 2,000 bushels of Saskatoon berries and 500 cherry trees, located just outside North Battleford.

“I always open right around the 17 of July, and this year, I did the same, but probably only about 15 per cent of it was ripe at that point,” he said. “With the quantity of the berries here [now], we could probably handle quite easily another 100 pickers to come in the next week or so.”

While it is not unusual to have the season extend here or there from year to year, Seib said this season seems to be a bit of an extreme case with the berries likely to last as late as the early portion of August before drying up, something even the veteran berry farmer says would be “pretty remarkable.”

Seib said the cherries, which always peak a little bit later, should be in prime picking nature by about mid-August, as the cherries tend to come into their own about two-to-three weeks after the Saskatoon berries.

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Seib’s has offered berry picking in the area since 2012. He said the idea to open the farm up to the public came following a trip to Australia in the early 2000s, in which he and his wife toured a number of wineries and fruit farms. Following the trip, the couple decided to open a berry farm of their own on their land, turning it into “something the generations to come could carry on with.”

Seib said the Berry Farm offers a great way to spend time as a family throughout the summer months.

“We keep our grounds really nice, and it’s just a nice way for the family to get out and be together doing something,” he said. “It is beneficial to their health and it is a way to get out of the city for a bit.”

In addition to the Saskatoons and cherries, Seib’s farm features frozen Saskatchewan cherries, frozen Saskatoons, jellies, syrups, and tart cherry juice.

To get to Seib’s Farm, head north on Highway 4, four miles from North Battleford, turn right on Highway 378 and go five miles east, turn right, and it is a half-mile south.

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martin.martinson@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow