A Beloved Area Farm Favorite Turns 70 Years Old
by Jenn Puckett Photos courtesy of Rohrbach’s
L ast June, a beautiful sunny morning found my 14-year-old son and I standing in a strawberry field at Rohrbach’s Farm. He wanted homemade strawberry freezer jam; and as he learned, that starts out on the farm. We picked berries for about two hours, joking and talking with one another and fellow pickers about all sorts of things. About halfway into our picking, the teenager thought for sure we had plenty of berries for our jam but I insisted we needed to double it. A few hours later, our freshly picked, perfectly ripe berries were transformed into ruby red jam filled jars, lining the kitchen counter and ready for the freezer. We were both so excit- ed to have jam that should last us until next year’s berry season. We ran out by the beginning of October. I may have underestimat- ed how much growing teenagers consume but if we had stopped picking when my son wanted to, we’d have been out of jam be- fore July! Denise Bosworth, one of the 4th generation owners at Rohrbach’s, laughed when I told her about our experience. She, more than most folks, truly understands all the labor and dedica- tion it takes to get that berry from the farm field to the freezer. I’m so glad I grew up when I did. I spent my formative years in the country outside of Orangeville. If I wasn’t home, I was probably at my grandparents, just a short walk up the hill. Summer break from school would find me either following my pappy around the ga- rage, playing in the woods or helping in one of their two gardens. There was a small kitchen garden near the house where my gram- my grew tomatoes, onions and bell peppers. (For some unknown reason she always referred to bell peppers as mangos…imagine my surprise when I was served a mango dessert as a teenager!) The lower garden was where they grew corn, potatoes and straw- berries. There was a small grove of peach trees and a huge thicket of raspberries on the property as well. Anything that could be harvested was pickled, frozen, canned or stored in the root cellar. I didn’t know or even think about the economic or health reasons for raising their own produce, it was just something they did. And it is something that a lot of us have taken for granted. Denise shares my fond nostalgia, though on a much bigger scale. She grew up with her siblings and cousins at the farm and from a young age was actively participating in the hard physical work of
Rohrbach’s offers pick-your-own strawberries when the season begins. Each year, they have a strawberry hotline that the public can call to get more info about picking availability, so stay tuned to their Facebook page!
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