We Picked 10 Gallons of Strawberries! But is it Worth The Trouble

Testing out and getting strawberries from the locals by the bucketload. Is it worth it though? Icing on the cake, actually going ahead and preserving these. We'll see how the beautiful one does it. All in this today's show. Enjoy! About to make my own homemade breakfast sausage spices just from plain ground pork, homegrown. We're up early this morning. Our entire family is going strawberry picking. A local-ish, I mean it's about an hour away, farm. Their strawberries are in. I'm curious though, is it worth it? We're driving out there. Are we gonna save money? Are we gonna have a good family experience? We're trying to quit the grocery store, so this is one option when you don't have a million strawberries.

Yes? Are there even going to be strawberries there? Remember last time we went to do this, there was no strawberries.

Another good question. Uh, your mom seems to have checked the website and it seems promising, but there's There's a lot that could go awry. This is what you got to do if you're gonna quit the grocery store.

Well, I never said I wouldn't.

And surely this is better quality. And well, I guess you never said you were going to be born to your mom and I either. You want to just keep buying those strawberries shipped in from California?

No, you could go pick them.

Yeah, let's try it.

Stay here.

Yeah, and to get the quantities we need, like a gallon for, uh, pints? One person for jam?

A gallon for one person a week.

They probably will eat 4 gallons fresh. I'm not kidding. And then the rest will be freeze-dried and frozen for smoothies. Freeze-dried for coloring and yogurt flavor, and then frozen for smoothies and stuff. For a year, for a family of 7, ferocious meat And fruit eaters for sure. I have a bunch of ingredients. I need to make breakfast sausage. Boys are doing chores. From my book, The Rooted Life, the no-carb breakfast casserole. I'm in the middle of, smack dab in the middle of eating eggs all day, every day for 7 days. Today I'm gonna make my very own no-carb breakfast casserole. I need some sausage. You mince some garlic for me? I don't have smoked paprika, so we're gonna do smoked salt from Redmond's. This is handy. 1 teaspoon pepper, 1 teaspoon ground sage, 1/2 teaspoon of fennel seeds, 1/2 teaspoon onion powder, 1/4 teaspoon paprika, 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes. We even make our own red pepper flakes. 1 teaspoon maple syrup. We ran out of garlic powder, so she's just gonna press some fresh garlic from the garden. Maybe that's what we should be doing anyway.

There we go.

Sausage is still falling out. Hey, good morning, good morning. We're gonna have to go through this anyway because we're running out of time. Take the sausage and fry it and crumble sausage in the pan. This is a very porkatarian meal. Putting a pound of sausage in it and a half a pound of bacon. Brown the Sausage on both sides. Thing about homegrown pork, one packet is fattier than the other. This one is a fatty one. I'm gonna do my 8 ounces of bacon. Now cut my bacon in little chunks. Bacon, our bacon. And put it on the bottom layer too. 1 cup of— what's that, about a cup? Cup of cheddar cheese. I totally forgot. I should have, uh, I even say it in the book. There might be enough bacon grease or sausage grease in there now. Probably. Start eggs in there and added another cup of cheese on top. I think we're ready. Let's do this. 350 for 30 minutes. Breakfast casserole is done. Does it look good? Yeah, it looks really good. Jonah, does that look good? Yeah, I guess. Guys, we only have 20 minutes, so we're gonna have to just eat and run. You got the best cheese. Everybody like it? Yeah, I'm all about the process of growing the food, not cooking it, and I'm learning.

Shae Elliott first telling me, what's the point of having all this delicious food if you're not gonna like do your best to enjoy it?

It would help if my feet didn't hurt while I was cooking. My feet are killing me. Sophisticated. Special, even. We're there. Beautiful country out here. Just look at this mountain view.

I know, it's so beautiful down here.

Look at this. You're the farmer here?

I am. Good. I'm Victor Justin Rhodes.

Yes.

How are you, buddy?

Hey, how are you?

Nice to meet you.

Yeah, nice to meet you.

Yeah, I wanted to meet you a long time ago. I'm Marty.

Oh, you know who we are? Yeah, I know who you are. Oh, okay. That's fine, you can film.

Okay.

Yeah, can I film?

You can film.

Okay.

No, not a problem.

What do we do? What do we check in with? Like, do we come and check in?

Yeah, just come and check in. Get a mask? Yeah, yeah, come on in.

How did you end up in this? Where are we?

It's Buffalo Camp.

Okay, this is very beautiful. It's, uh— Jeez.

Um, we feel like super, super fortunate. It's, it's a long, long story, and you're actually a big part of it. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now we gotta hear this story.

We were living in Hong Kong. Oh yeah, before, in 2020, in the city, then during the middle of COVID that we were gonna find a way to move back to the US.

Okay. And, uh, was it bad over there during COVID We were like, yeah, it was pretty bad, man.

We had a huge—

oh yeah, it was real shut down there.

Trying to do like all local products.

Okay, that's our main focus.

So you can sell, uh You grow— we grow veg for a CSA.

Oh, okay.

And then the berries are like the big focus. Okay, that's our big focus.

So yeah, because you do strawberries and blackberries, asparagus, asparagus, winter.

In the fall we do pumpkins, winter squash.

Okay.

And then you saw the CSA garden out there.

Okay, that's pretty good, man.

Century Farm, basically.

Wow, you bought into a Century Farm.

Justin. Hey, hey, how you doing?

How's it going?

Good.

Danny, how long has your family been here? How many years? 100 plus?

200.

200? Wow.

So yeah, about the early 1800s. Look at you. How many acres do you still have? Gosh, they own the whole mountain on the other side and all the way over into Edwards Cove. Oh, nice.

But he sold the last 10 to me.

Yeah, okay. And now no more's for sale. Yeah, when I grew up, it was about 32 acres in the farm and all the way back to the end of the pasture where you see those yellow flowers back there. Wow. And but you know, when you're a kid, That ain't nothing. I mean, you don't pay attention to how valuable it is. No, take it for granted. Yeah, you pick.

Here we go.

So how does a guy end up from Hong Kong all the way here to Western North Carolina?

My wife was an international school teacher, so she worked the first job. We moved to Colorado from South Carolina. We got there, we were there for like maybe 5 or 6 months, and this job came across the email I talked to my wife and said, hey, you want to be an international librarian? She's like, yeah, sure. I said— no, I actually told her, I said, send the email, sign up. So she did, and we ended up in Berlin for 4 years. And then after Berlin, uh, we got another— she got another job in Hong Kong. So we were in the middle of Hong Kong, 3 years, 2020 hits, we're like 2.5 hours from Wuhan, and it was like lockdown, man. There's— we couldn't go anywhere, so When that happened, um, on February 29th, I can still remember, it was leap year, we flew back from Hong Kong to stay at my mother-in-law's place in Ohio. And when we were there, um, I'm like, I want to start— like, we had— she had like 7 or 8 acres, so we would constantly come back and do all of her projects for her in the summertime, like fix everything and like do some gardening and stuff like that. But then I kind of got the bug, and this started like in 2020 with, with COVID and everything happening. I'm like, let's get some bees, let's plant some berries, let's do some fun stuff and see what happens. So in all of that, I started doing like, you know, YouTube research, and of course came across you.

Yeah, because at some point, right, because that's what happened with the video a day. Yeah, yeah.

And then I watched Joel's stuff, and then I watched a bunch of other things as well, you know, like all these different like homesteaders and stuff. And I'm like, man, this is This is what I want. This is what I've been missing. So I was like, no, let's do this. And my mother-in-law was living by herself in Ohio, and she goes, let me sell my place. So she sold her place, and all three of us went in together on this property.

Heck yes.

And that was— but that was like 2023.

So you weren't even from North Carolina? No. So how did you know you were in like one of the best places in North Carolina?

Well, so I take that back. We have— gosh, well, I lived in South Carolina right across the border in Oconee County. Yeah, so I was there as a park ranger working for, um, that was career number 2. Yeah, so park ranger, and then I quit that and I started doing taxes. Okay, but, um, when we were over there, we would come up to Brevard and also go up to Highlands and Cashiers in those areas. So we knew, oh, okay, this area a little bit. And then I got a relative down, some relatives that live down in Carrusel. Okay, which is right down the road, like 5 or 6 miles. So we came to visit. It was funny, this place came up for sale. We were in— back in Germany living, and this place came up for sale in the summertime. And I'm like, hey, we're going to visit, let's go check out the place. So we came for a Saturday and just loved it. This place is great. And talked to Danny, and it was— man, buying the place was an absolute ordeal.

Yeah, you're still friends with the guy who sold it to you next door? He helps you?

No, I asked him for help.

He's got all the local connection network.

Yep.

Yeah, that's invaluable. Good job.

We're gonna use them to rot away some plastic.

Yeah, he's got a tractor, right?

And no, it's everything.

You can borrow a tractor every once in a while. Oh, okay.

With the greenhouses, the farm stand, the tractors, all the equipment.

And I bet he's happy to see his land being utilized.

I think it's a love— he's actually over me making changes now. He's like, it's cool, whatever you want to do. But like, at the start, he was like, no, he'd get upset with any little change I made. So, but he's better, much better with it.

Yeah. So the, you know, the old-timers, they're farming different than Yeah, so this is conventional.

Yeah, kindness is conventional.

Yeah.

Um, you know, that's tough. Yeah, because the neighbors have farmed it the same way forever.

Yeah, this is kind of reminiscent of Alaska.

Oh, can I eat it?

Put it up next to your head. You remember picking strawberries in Alaska, Big Daddy? Yeah, they were huge. Sandy, having teenagers, of course you'll eat that in 2 days. Henry, have you collected all those by yourself?

And that helped me.

Mama helped you? Uh-oh, you got your legs on backwards.

This is reminiscent because we were in like a valley, okay, Alaska, and there was mountains.

It was the same temperature.

Yeah.

Does this remind you of anything?

The train wreck in Bonneville on this summer's day.

Good guess.

Look at this one.

Oh wow. Yeah, get the uglier ones you can. Oh, this is not taking no time at all. How many are we getting, best Rebecca? 20?

How many do you think? Should I go get more baskets? We might spend a lot of money.

The other place we went was just $15 a basket. I don't think that's what it is here though. I think that was a highway robbery. Why didn't we get 20? Well, why don't we get 20 baskets? Serious irrigation line right there. Becky, you might want to taste them. Okay. I ate too much for breakfast. So sweet. Look who's here.

Hey, first timer!

Austin heard of strawberry season And what's more important than picking the berries when they're in season? Eating them.

Yeah, touche.

You're gonna pick them? Are you big enough yet? Okay, but we gotta determine if this is worth it or not. 1 hour. Big Dad says yeah. Is it?

Why is this worth it?

Because I said to you, this— we could probably just buy these even a little cheaper at Whole Foods.

Um, well, these are like local. They're— we know how they've been grown. We met the farmer. We can have a relationship with him. Yeah, he's told me he's gonna look us in the eye when we ask, what— how did you grow these? This hasn't traveled, yeah, thousands of miles, because where are the berries?

They're probably coming from like Mexico. They probably didn't even come from North Carolina, and that's a shame because it's the season right now. Yeah, this is critical right now, guys, if we're gonna quit the grocery store this summer.

He's doing it, he's doing it!

Look at that! The reason those Alaskan strawberries were so big is because you have 20 hours of daylight, or I don't know what it is in the springtime. No, it was in the fall, wasn't it? Well, yeah, so they had nearly 20 hours of daylight. Big Daddy just said my dad would say he doesn't eat strawberries anymore because they're not sweet, but if you eat this strawberry, it's sweet. The store strawberries, I don't know, they're bred for Stability, uh, endurance. I don't know if those other berries we got from the other farm were sweet. We've got 5. We got 10 last time, the other farm. I'm thinking 10 this time. Got the asparagus patch.

You gotta look. Oh yeah, but that one's a little bit old. That's gonna be fine.

So how many hours are you working a day on the farm? Ah, versus accounting.

Now accounting, none.

Oh, you got out of it?

Well, no, no, I mean—

Oh, this time of season?

Yeah, I start after I make the kids breakfast every morning, and after that I go deal with the chickens and then start my day. And then employees come in about 9:30, and you work till 5 or 6? I work with them until about 4:30, 5:30, eat dinner, and then come back and do—

Wow, you feel good? You holding up physically?

Dude, 50 is tough, man.

Yeah. Hey, bye-bye.

Thanks, man.

Appreciate it. This is 10 Acre Garden.

Morgan, nice to meet you.

Justin.

Mr. and Mrs. 10 Acres. We're going to the 10 Acre Farm. Good place you got here. Yeah, it is. One of the most beautiful places in western North Carolina. Thank you. In America, for that matter. I would know, I've been to every state. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good job. We might be on the next— 11. Back home, back to business.

Most of them are going to freeze, aren't we, babe? We're going to freeze some, let them eat—

the kids eat some. Out of 10 gallons, how many are you going to let the kids eat? Fresh. At least 4 gallons. 4. All right. We've already frozen 3 trays for yogurt— not yogurt, smoothies. Rebecca, 4 for eating. Blended that now.

Yeah, but it's— I just read the directions and it says to blend it until smooth. Do you think I should blend it more?

Well, think about the consistency you're gonna want for your—

Do you want a little bit of eating? You know what, I might blend some of this smoother and then have some chunks too.

Yeah, you want a little bit of chunks.

I'm going to add pectin, honey, lemon juice.

And so everybody knows, this is your first time making strawberry jam.

This is my first.

This is not an instructional.

Yeah, I've done it before a long time ago, but I used sugar then, and now I want to try it with honey, so I'm doing something very different. That I've never done before.

So keep telling her to call me. She just keeps letting me be on the phone and you were— she poked me. She poked me. Keep writing my book. I'm happy for the distraction from the book. It's so hard to write. So hard.

So what I've done is I've pureed my strawberries. I think I showed you that. And then I added honey and then the pectin and lemon juice.

You're really gonna do this? This is gonna happen today?

No, I got my jars.

That's only 8 heating up.

Well, we're gonna see what we get out of here.

All right, so now what?

I'm just letting it cook down.

Like, how do you know how long to go?

Um, about 30 minutes of simmering, it said. I don't think that that's a hard and fast rule. I think that, um, I'm trying to get it to set up.

Wait, it's cooked down to that consistency? Yes, it's actually cooked down to the jam consistency. I can't imagine. These strawberries are sweet enough without any honey. Yum. They're just water bathing them.

Yes.

How long you gonna do that now?

Um, it'll be 15 minutes.

That's it? Yeah.

I got another half a pint. I didn't have enough to do the correct spacing in the can, so I just put it in the fridge so that when I can more, I can either add that What temperature is that at? Well, I'm gonna get it to a rolling boil, and then I'm gonna start my timer for 15 minutes.

Okay.

And then they'll process for 15 minutes, and then I'll turn it off. And then once it comes down, then I'll take them out and put them here.

That's easy. And how's it feel?

It's good. I'm sad that I only got— I only got 5 pints.

So you need to do another gallon?

Yeah, I'll do another gallon. I just want them to pop. Yeah, they will.

I know. We'll go on our walk, by the time we get back they'll pop. We've harvested those this morning and here they sit.

I know, and we've got 3 trays. You want to see the trays?

Yeah, let's see these trays. Tomorrow, big move for the cows, bike riding.

We picked these 3 hours ago and they're in the strawberry— they're in the freezer already.

There's something peaceful about it.

And then we have more and we have a bunch of—

oh, we didn't show all these bags too, or is that from the— that's from the other farm?

This is from— this is from last week. I have 3, 3.

It might be the crazy chicken or strawberry lady because you're getting 10 more gallons. I want to get 15 from that other. So we would have had 20, 30, 30 gallons. So you know how we'd have to grow our whole acre? I know.

Okay, so we not— I don't think so. I think that—

no, that's just—

I think that we I could. Okay, if you want to go ahead. Okay, so we got 11 gallons today, but we gave 1 gallon away to my dad and other people. And then we got 10 gallons, and then we got 10 gallons before, so that's 20 gallons total that we've already gotten. And then I want to get 15 more, which would be 35 gallons, but that's a whole year.

Don't take any more of my pasture. Let's just keep buying strawberries from local farms. Then there's people People enjoy that.

Yes, and I enjoyed it. It's fun.

We got to go see a beautiful farm.

I wrote an Instagram post and I was thinking about— I used to go strawberry picking with my mom.

Yeah, Florida. Hmm, I didn't know that.

Mom would have loved it.

Yeah, she would have had so much fun. Yeah, Dad got to be with us, which was fun. Yeah, we saw this beautiful farm, beautiful area. Went on a family trip, supported locals. The strawberries are much tastier, certainly more fresher, and probably going to be more nutrient-dense because they're fresher. And we saw the soil they're grown in— good soil. I think it was worth it.