L’Arc-en-Ciel Prairie

Cloudy but not raining, today was the perfect day to haul in 30 lbs of strawberries at the u-​pick farm! L’Arc-en-Ciel Prairie is a local family farm located in nearby Sun Prairie. Knowing that strawberries are one of the fruits that are important to seek out organic, I reached out to the farm to find out their growing methods. One of the owners, Deb, emailed me back within a matter of minutes, assuring me they don’t use any herbicides, pesticides, or insecticides. She said no weed killers are used either and they use organic growing methods (lots of hand-​weeding!) but just haven’t gone through the tremendous paperwork to become certified. I understand a lot of smaller family farms aren’t jumping through all the hoops and expenses to become certified organic by the gov’t, which I can certainly understand.
Upon our arrival, Deb & Lloyd (the husband and wife owners) warmly greeted us and got us set up with flats for picking. There were a few other folks picking at the farm but it wasn’t overly crowded by any means. They had us start at the end of rows, moving down the rows and placing a fluorescent flag where we stopped and the next pickers could start from later. There is a porta potty available in case you want to stay all day. ;)
We each picked about 10lbs (a full flat) in a little over an hour. There were certainly some weeds mixed in, but I found that reassuring that there was no spraying! Berries were plentiful and easy to find. Berries are $ 3/​lb which is more expensive than some of the other u-​pick places around, but again, it’s not always easy to find ones that aren’t using pesticides or weed killers, which is important to me.
Strawberry season is a quick one so get out there while you can! The owners were delightful and the berries delicious, making it totally worth the drive.