Jim Shelton, Register Staff
SHELTON — It’s been a perplexing year for strawberry prognostication.
Even under the best of conditions, strawberries ripen to the beat of their own drummer. They tend to come out in the second week of June, barring any unusual weather.
Well, as Jamie Jones of Jones Family Farms can tell you, this year has been all about the unusual weather.
“These temperature vacillations make it a lot more challenging to be a farmer,” Jones says, bending down to examine a flowering strawberry plant at the farm recently.
“You do your best to manage it — the cold, the heat, the excess rain, the dry periods. You’re doing all these things because Mother Nature gives you all these peaks and valleys,” he says. “Strawberries are one of the hardest things to predict.”