3 minute read
Berry delicious Jones Strawberry Farm carries on family tradition
Story by LISA SAVAGE
As a young girl in 1941, Anna Ruth Jones worked on her family’s strawberry farm in Carlisle County. One day, on a whim, she wrote her name and address on a quart of strawberries before they were shipped from the farm.
A grocery store employee in Portland, Maine, found those strawberries. The two became pen pals and communicated for years. Back in those days, Anna Ruth’s family shipped strawberries up North, and local customers picked their own berries for 15 cents a quart.
A lot has changed at Jones Strawberry Farm since then. Today, at 92 years old, Anna Ruth owns the family farm, along with two of her children. And she’s still the boss. The strawberries no longer end up in faraway places, but the farm still produces an average of 10 million berries a season on 3 1/2 acres. Anna Ruth’s granddaughter, Samantha Wiggins, owns a bakery on the farm, Dessert Market, which produces everything strawberry during the season.
A Family Tradition
Growing strawberries dates back generations in the family history. In 1965, Anna Ruth and her husband, Jesse, started their own farm in Sedalia, growing the berries on 1 acre. They raised three children on that farm, including Samantha’s father, Galen Jones; a daughter, Carol Rollins; and their oldest, Gary Jones. “All of her children were raised on the strawberry farm,” Samantha says.
Jesse passed away seven years ago, and now, Galen and Carol own the farm with their mother. At its peak, Anna Ruth and Jesse grew strawberries on 10 acres. Almost daily, at least 100 cars parked at the farm as visitors roamed the field, picking their own berries. Nowadays, very few people pick their own — customers want to buy them already picked. “We would love it if people still wanted to pick their own berries,” Samantha says. “Now, we hire a lot of extra workers during the strawberry season.”
Even though the farm has other crops and farming operations throughout the year, strawberry season requires everyone’s help. “It’s all hands on deck. There’s no age limit if you’re born into it,” Samantha says.
As soon as one strawberry season ends, new plants go into the ground for the next season. By winter, they’re dormant and look dead, and by the end of March, warmer temperatures awaken the plants. That’s when the danger of frost looms, and the family keeps a close eye on the weather. If frost or freezing temperatures are forecast, an extra large tarp covers the field. “It’s an all-day job to get it down,” Samantha says. “If you put it down too soon, it smothers the strawberries.”
The Kentucky Soil
Anna Ruth has always said strawberries thrive in Western Kentucky because the nitrogen in the soil is the best. By 2020, though, she let the family know that use through the years had sucked all the nutrients out of the ground, and they relocated the strawberry field across the road. It’s flourished there the last two seasons.
Samantha never considered herself a baker, but she always thought it would be fun to have a bakery at the farm during strawberry season. She has owned a hair salon on the family property for 21 years and always slowed down or paused that business during strawberry season. In 2020, though, the state of Kentucky ordered hair salons to close because of COVID-19. That’s when Samantha decided to move forward with her dream of opening the bakery. After strawberry season, the salon reopened.
That first year, Samantha cooked out of her home kitchen. “We thought, ‘Let’s do this and see what happens,’” she says. “We learned real quick we couldn’t do this without a full industrial kitchen.”
In 2021, they built a commercial kitchen next to the fields. Samantha’s youngest sister, Landyn, works with her in the bakery. “My grandmother is a great Southern cook, and we use only her recipes,” Samantha says.
They serve everything from pies, cakes and cobblers to ice cream and milkshakes.
“The last two years have been huge,” she says. “We were selling hundreds of items a day.”
Most of the customers who come to the farm to get strawberries also purchase something from the bakery. The family has a vintage trailer that’s been converted to a food truck and they expect to set it up in Mayfield to sell food and desserts.
Technology
The strawberry farm hit a lull about 10 years ago, and Samantha credits its resurgence to its social media presence. It’s common to see tour buses filled with visitors arrive at the farm from several hours away. “It’s becoming a destination,” she says.
Jones Strawberry Farm has a Facebook page, and the business is active on TikTok and Instagram. They use those pages to announce the days strawberries are available or if they’re having to close early because of rain. “Without the technology of social media, I’m not sure how much longer the strawberry farm would have been able to operate,” Samantha says. “I don’t think the bakery would exist without it.”
