GOSHEN — If you've been planning to pick up some locally grown strawberries this year, you should get them while you can.

Strawberry season came early, and with good results. But that also means you'll have to get your berries quickly because the season's end will come earlier as well, possibly even this weekend.

And there aren't as many to be had.

“The warm weather brought (the strawberries) on pretty fast,” said Dale Yoder, the founder of Yoder's U-Pick Strawberry Patch in Goshen, and whose son now runs the business.

Unfortunately, however, a frost several weeks later zapped a solid amount of them. According to Kevin Bullard of Bullard's Farm Market, their crop only yielded 70 to 80 percent of a typical season.

Still, the quality of the strawberries is high.

“The berries are beautiful,” Bullard said. Yoder echoed Bullard's statement, adding that U-Pick's customers have seemed generally pleased with the berries they have picked.

One of those patrons, Karen Stump, said she's surprised there are still berries to be picked in the patch. She goes to Yoder's every year, and though she thought this year's strawberries seemed a little less sweet and a bit smaller, “so far they look good and they taste good,” she said.

“I think they're going to be going into a pie, and maybe some jam,” Stump added with a chuckle.

Both Yoder and Bullard said they'll be open for business through the weekend. Bullard's Farm Market will decide Friday or Saturday whether to have strawberries another week or to shut down sales of the crop down for the year.


Editor's note -- The original version of this story raised a question for some about whether Bullard's will remain open. The intent was to say that strawberries would be short-lived, not the market. It will be open throughout the summer and sells a variety of plants, fruits, vegetables and other goods.