Around this part of the world, strawberries mean spring.
Tennessee’s famous strawberry crops ripen annually sometime in the four-week span between mid-April and mid-May, the same time traveling carnivals roll into town and schools start winding down.
But strawberries can be fickle. And this year, they — like many people — are waiting on a prolonged stretch of sunshine and warm weather before they usher in springtime.
Jim Cooper, owner of Cooper Berry Farm, says all the rain his Whitwell farm has received in the last couple of weeks has put the farm’s strawberry plants “a little behind.”
“The cool, damp weather has got them delayed a little bit,” he said. “They’re at least a week behind.”