Strawberry Fields Forever

Yesterday I woke to the sound of multiple tractors and trucks, a sure sign that strawberry season is beginning.  My little house is surrounded by strawberry fields, the largest owned by Astin Farms.  They have a huge field behind my house and every year I have watched with amazement as they prepare the fields.  This year as I was watching, the foreman came to the field to check on the progress.  I took advantage of the situation and went over to find out about the process.

There were 5 tractors working the field.  The first was a huge tractor that is GPS guided and forms the hills for planting.

The second large tractor compacts the hills to ready them for planting.

The large tractors are followed by smaller tractors that the foreman called the "ants."  They lay the irrigation tubing and plastic all in one step.  Huge rolls of plastic and tubing are loaded on to the back of the tractors and there a several men seated at the back of each tractor guiding the equipment.

There are men at the edge of the field on a large truck that unload the plastic and tubing, and others who attach the sprinkler heads to the tubing.  There were dozens of workers involved in this operation.

The end result is a field ready for planting.