Linvilla Orchards Strawberry Festival 2025: Why are strawberries so sweet this year?

Strawberry Festival | FOX Weather Philly

Stephen Linvill with Linvilla Orchards talks with FOX 29 Meteorologist Drew Anderson about their Strawberry Festival being held this weekend, featuring the world’s largest Strawberry Shortcake.

MEDIA, Pa. - Have you had any local strawberries yet?  They're sweet and juicy this year for a reason: all the rain we got in May.

What they're saying:

Farmers at Linvilla Orchards in Delaware County say this is the best strawberry crop they've had in years.

"The plants like the rain, but we have a lot of problems when the strawberries turn red and get a lot of rain," said Stephen Linvill. "For us, this worked out perfectly because we had a lot of rain while the berries were still green and that doesn't cause any rotting issues." 

They would have some rot in the strawberries had they been ripe and red.

It really did work out perfectly because Linvilla held its annual strawberry festival on Saturday. 

Besides having hayrides to pick your own strawberries, they also made Delaware County's largest strawberry shortcake. It's an annual tradition at their bakery.

Now, the rain did put local cherries at a disadvantage.  

Linvilla said they got fewer cherries than in previous years.

Milburn Orchards said that was also the case for them. It was actually one of their worst Cherry crops.

Milburn is just across the Chester County and New Castle County lines in Maryland.

Caleb Milburn explained, "the mid-April freeze took out a lot of cherries and some early peach varieties. Our cherry crop is hurting because of that, and  also last week we had 3.5 inches of rain that cracked a lot of what we had left."  

The skin on berries cracked because of the way the fruit absorbs water.

According to the Washington State University, cherries can absorb water through their skin, and if they get too much, the skin can swell and crack open. The other way the cherry skin cracks is when the berries have too much liquid inside the fruit. Imagine blowing a balloon up so much it pops. The same thing can happen if berries have too much juice.

In New Jersey, the Mento family says all the rain was a good thing for their blueberry farm.

Kathy Mento said "we had nice weather during pollination, followed by that cool wet weather, which really helped the berries size up. We're not just starting to gear up for the harvest."

Like with strawberries, it's better to have drier conditions when it's harvest season for blueberries.

The Mento farm is in the Hammonton area of Atlantic County.

Atlantic County in New Jersey, along with Berks County and Chester County in Pennsylvania, are the only spots in the Philadelphia area that are still considered abnormally dry. 

Philadelphia got six inches of rain in May. That's three inches above average.  

What's next:

Linvilla Orchards will join Bill Anderson on Behind The News with some of their fresh fruit and baked goods this week on FOX Local at 4 p.m.