Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Poteet Strawberry Festival April 11-13 with Burlington Berry-Dairy Days June 20-22


Poteet, Texas, a small town in Atascosa County, in the San Antonio Metropolitan Area, is known, in Texas, for its strawberries.

This coming weekend, April 11, 12 & 13, the 2025 Poteet Strawberry Festival takes place.

I have never been to Poteet, nor had a Poteet strawberry. However, the Poteet strawberry reputation for being exceptionally good, that I have been aware of.

Poteet does not produce enough strawberries to export many berries outside Poteet's immediate vicinity, unless there is a bumper crop.

I remember a few years back, whilst I still lived in Fort Worth, news arrived that Central Market, in Fort Worth, had received a limited shipment of the rare Poteet strawberries. If I recollect correctly, and sometimes I do, my friend, Elsie Hotpepper, managed to get herself some Poteet strawberries from Central Market.

I had previously told Elsie Hotpepper that I found the strawberries available in Texas, those being Driscoll strawberries, from California, to be flavorless, that blind folded I would not be able to guess it was a strawberry.

When Elsie Hotpepper had herself a Poteet strawberry, she told me she now understood what I was talking about. 

Thing is, I grew up in Western Washington, in the Skagit Valley, famed for its various agricultural products; berries, like strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, and other agricultural products, like corn, that is so good when one gets the corn ears fresh from a roadside stand.

The town I grew up in, Burlington, in the Skagit Valley, was sort of strawberry central, back then. There were a couple canneries in town, processing the berries.

And during strawberry season Burlington's Berry-Dairy Days took place, with a parade and a giant strawberry shortcake, a sample of which was free.

I have no idea if the free strawberry shortcake still takes place.

But, Berry-Dairy Days still happens, a couple months later than the Poteet Strawberry Festival, with the Burlington event taking place June 20-22.

The Skagit Valley, and Western Washington, does not grow strawberries at the production level of back in the previous century. I know the Skagit Valley has greatly amped up blueberry production. Blueberries can be picked via a machine. Strawberries are labor intensive, as in a human has to pick the delicate berries.

You can click the links to go to the Poteet Strawberry Festival & Burlington Berry-Dairy Days websites...

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