Strawberries! : They’re Big, Sweet, Delicious and Ready to Eat Now

For some, the fruit is so luscious, so sensuous, that it is best eaten straight up. Nothing on it, not even a little sugar.

Others more decadent dip it in melted chocolate.

Whatever the case, strawberries--the sweet, juicy little fruit known best for adorning shortcake--are leaving San Diego’s fields by the crate load into the arms of hungry consumers.

At a dozen or so roadside stands along the highways in North County, strawberry aficionados can get--straight from the vine--gourmet varieties from mid-February through June.

The Chandler strawberry, a variety known for its sweetness and large size--sometimes as big as a fist--proliferate the stands at about $1.50 a pint basket.

The smaller Douglas variety is the kind usually found in supermarkets, because of its sturdiness.

“You can taste the difference from the stand strawberries to the store-bought ones,” said James Ukegawa, whose father and uncle began growing the delicious fruit in Carlsbad shortly after World War II.

The Ukegawas grow strawberries on about 130 acres in Carlsbad, just off Palomar Airport Road. The family-run operation trucks the fruit all over the area and sells it off the vine from its roadside stand. Fields of colorful ranunculus serve as a beautiful backdrop for the stand on the corner of Palomar Airport Road and Paseo del Norte.

About 60 million trays, with 12 one-pint baskets to a tray, will be harvested in California this season, said Vince Mastracco, market director for the Watsonville-based California Strawberry Advisory Board. That represents about 80% of the fruit grown in the United States. The rest is grown in Florida.

In Cardiff, a gigantic strawberry-shaped nylon flag fluttering in the stiff ocean breeze is all that is necessary to indicate to residents there that strawberry season is in full swing. A steady stream of customers pull into the Yasuda family’s fruit stand on Manchester Avenue, just east of Interstate 5. The Yasudas have been growing strawberries on nine acres along Manchester Avenue for nine years.

“I don’t eat them too much anymore,” said Penny Yasuda, 25, who manages the stand for her father, Ben. “I just taste them to make sure they’re sweet.”

The Yasudas sell only the Sequoia variety, an extremely sweet strawberry that most growers steer away from because of its short shelf life.

The Sequoias go for up to $2.75 a pint for the larger ones with stems, ideal for dipping in chocolate.

Of the 15,000 acres of strawberries planted statewide, about 1,300 acres are farmed in San Diego County, said Tom Eschera, the county’s deputy agriculture commissioner.

In a highly competitive and volatile market, strawberries can also be a very profitable business, Eschera said. In 1985, $21 million worth of the berries were harvested in the county and brought to market.

“It’s a very active market this year,” said Ukegawa, 34, who along with his cousin, Jon Ukegawa, 35, form a sales team for the company, Giumarra of Carlsbad. “It looked like it would be a record year but the rains last month changed that.”

Seedlings are planted in late October and with a mild winter, such as the county experienced this year, picking will begin as early as late January.

Although San Diego’s coastal areas, with sandy soil and ocean breezes, are an ideal area to grow the red fruit, heavy rains in March can damage the blossom or cause mold to grow on mature fruit, Mastracco said.

“We feel its going to be a good year,” he said. “Fortunately we keep coming through the rains unscathed this year.”

The strawberry is an extremely delicate fruit, one that requires many labor-intensive and expensive practices, Mastracco said. When it is planted the rows are lined in plastic for protection. When the berries are ripe they must by hand-picked and then immediately sorted in the field.