Cyril Wheelock, strawberry grower
You can taste the weather in a strawberry. A dismal early summer can make for watery fruit, but sunshine makes them sing. Fruit farmer Cyril Wheelock will be hoping the warm June sunshine that has ripened this year's crop will continue during next week's Wexford Strawberry Festival.
Festival goers in Enniscorthy are not expected to consume quite the 27 tonnes of strawberries that will be spooned into mouths at Wimbledon in the days ahead. But the four-day festival will be a busy time for Wheelock's small farm, where workers will be picking from early morning, and stocking the stall that will sell bowls of fruit topped with thick Wexford cream.
"Five or six of us, mostly family, will pick each morning of the festival for that day's sale. That way you get the real flavour when they're eaten the same day. You can only do that when you run a small operation like ours."
Wheelock grows the Dutch variety Elsanta on his farm outside Enniscorthy, and usually spots the first glowing red ripe berry in late spring. The runners producing this year's crop were lifted out of their fields and kept in cold storage during the winter months before being put down again when the frosts cleared. The glasshouse he has added to the farm has added a month to the end of the last strawberry-growing season. "Last year we started picking them in May and picked the last of them on November 6th," Wheelock says.
What's the strawberry grower's biggest pest? "You're trying to manage the weather the whole time. Dry spells bring their own issues but I won't say anything against it cause I love the fine weather."Wexford Strawberry Festival Thursday June 29th-Sunday July 2nd, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford. See www.strawberryfestival.ie.
