Gathering Seasons – A story of connection and the berry and cherry patches at Prairie Gardens

By Farmer Tam Andersen

With the mid July sun warm on our shoulders, we are gathering at Prairie Gardens for one of my favourite pastimes: strawberry picking.

The kids are excited! It’s the first berries of the season and we can’t wait to sink our teeth into them and to feel the juice dribbling down our chins! We spread out across the straw-covered rows scanning for the first ripe berries of the season – the king berries. We call them “six-biters”. Because it takes six bites to eat them – they are that huge! There are lots of strawberries heavy with green and orange berries. Not many ripe ones yet. We are hunting for the really perfectly red first berries of the season – sweet, soft and juicy. There are whoops of excitement when we find them. Our buckets fill slowly as we go.

Berry picking on our farm isn’t so different from anywhere else in Canada. A bucket. Good shoes. A willingness to get your hands — and often your knees — dirty. But the berries are definitely different here. It’s a taste of the land. A rare prairie terroir—from the deep, black glacial loam left on the delta that is now our farm, formed by a meltwater river to an inland sea from glaciers eons ago. The strawberries draw their unique flavour from our soil formed at the end of the last ice age, giving them a rich strawberry signature of depth, minerality, and a clean, bright acidity.

I encourage the youngsters. “Bend down in the rows and look under the leaves. You’ll see it: that dark, velvety soil that crumbles between your fingers. This is ancient prairie earth—two feet deep – black #1 Alberta topsoil. When you taste a berry here, you taste a living memory. It’s the land.”

Prairie Gardens – Tam & Laurel Andersen

So we gather — like berries in a bucket — with stories from the farm. A reminder that even in a fast-moving world, there is still time to connect under the sky. We are really lucky here, close to Edmonton, Alberta. There are more than just strawberries at our u-pick, we have raspberries, sour cherries and haskaps. Plus there are a lot of native berries. There are wild strawberries in the sunny clearings of the forest to stumble upon. Tiny but delectable

In the understudy of the parkland boreal forest on our farm, there are summer wild raspberries galore. We harvest the leaves for tea. The berries, bright and sweet, for scones.

Saskatoons are next – ready early in August. This is the prairie berry that I grew up on. I recall succulent purple garlands of opulent clusters at the tops of the saskatoon that grew behind my Auntie Anne’s wood shed. We’d climb up onto the roof to smackerel up the biggest, juiciest berries at the tops of the trees. Saskatoons have a deep, dusky purple sweetness layered with a subtle almond‑marzipan note that comes from the seeds. Their flesh is soft and winey, with a texture somewhere between a blueberry and a small cherry. The skins give a pleasant pop, and the tiny seeds add a delicate, nutty crunch that lingers on your lips. We jumped and ran fast, though, when the wasps buzzed out of the rafters of the roof beneath our feet.

When I was a kid, the summers flew by. Before we’d know it – it was the dog days of August. Hot, sultry prairie thunderstorm weather. Time to go chokecherry picking and for a swim in the river. It’s a dusty drive down gravel roads to find the patch. We’d find wild chokecherries in dense thickets close to the local landmark – the Ronalaine train tressel – nestled up along the banks of the Bow River, deep in southern Alberta. My mum and several local farm women would gather what seemed like the whole village of Rolling Hills – the Grues, the Hirches, the Hietrichs, the Lesters, Pattersons, the Zenainkos, with all the buckets we could find, and head off on our adventure, along with country picnics, mosquito spray, sunhats, and swim suits. We were heading off into rattlesnake country.

Read more Posts by Tam Andersen, Global Woman of Vision

We knew about rattlesnakes, so not overly concerned. The snakes hiding in the shade of the trees would nicely warn intruders like us with an unmistakable sharp rattle, telling us to stay away. Up close, a rattlesnake rattle looks like a stack of tiny, dry seed pods—light, hollow, and perfectly shaped to clatter together. It’s nature’s built‑in maraca, designed to scare you with a warning buzz – to give the snake a little space. Freeze! Look! And slowly step away from them as you beat your retreat. This is our warning lecture from the moms at the chokecherry pick. And make lots of noise as you move through the thicket to let the snakes know you are coming – so they have time to get out of the way.

We kids all piled out of the trucks, buckets in hand. Our mission? We had to pick at least four buckets each to make chokecherry syrup for pancakes for the long prairie winter ahead. The tree branches are loaded. Hanging heavy like grapes, these tart miniature black cherries are easy to strip off to fill the buckets. Chokecherries are the taste of the prairie coulees—intense, dark, and a little wild. They’re sharply tart with a whisper of almond from the seed, with a dry, mouth-puckering tannin finish that feels like the land itself: rugged, sun‑soaked, with a hint of sage in the air.

Our buckets are full. It’s hot dog roast time. We are searching for some dried branches on the ground so we can make a fire for the roast. I reach down to pick up a branch and it hastily ‘slizzard’ out of reach! Yikes! A SNAKE! And as I’m thinking about that, all of a sudden I think — wait a minute, I didn’t hear a rattle. Sigh of relief. It was a Bullsnake. Harmless. Whew!

Now it’s a deep fall. It’s time for cactus and cranberries on the Prairies. There are oodles of beautiful rose pink blooming pincushion cactus atop every coulee, where prairie grasslands slope to the river. These little cactus berries surprise you: they’re leathery, tender and juicy all at the same time, with a sweetness that feels almost berry‑like crossed with aloe, followed by a gentle floral note. When you pluck them from the cactus, only the ripe ones will let go, so you know which ones to pick. Pop the end of the cactus berry in your mouth and give it a squeeze! The cactus berry filling is soft and smooth, like a miniature sweet juicy slippery strawberry with a million little seeds.
Pincushion cactus berries look like a weirdly smooth longish kiwi, nestled into the little but sharp spines of the pincushion—amber jewels that pop out of the cactus like nature’s own candy. They’re slim, and delicate stand out against the round, spiky low-growing succulent like little rays of desert sunshine. A real treat from southern Alberta.

Back at our 20 acre forest near Edmonton on our farm – in the Payhonin National Healing Forest, it’s prairie apple and cranberry time in late September to early October. In the forest, your nose tells you the cranberries or “Kalyna” berries are ready before you see them. They have a bold, woodsy scent—almost musky or like old sneakers or autumn leaves warming in the sun. It’s a smell you only get from truly wild prairie fruit. It’s time to gather them. Pick them after the first frost and they mellow beautifully—the wild zing-tang and sharpness eases, the musk softens, and the berry becomes almost jammy. The forest is our last gathering place of the season. “Kalyna” is the Ukrainian word for highbush cranberry — a berry cherished for its bright colour, bold flavour, and deep cultural meaning. On the Prairies, the name came with the settlers and stayed, becoming part of our own local language.

The word “Payhonin” comes from the Cree Nation, here in Treaty Six Lands – and translates roughly to the gathering place.

Let’s celebrate Canada together, gathering at the berry patches on roads less traveled!

If you would like to come and pick with us on our farm, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

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