Boro Valley Strawberry farm photowalk, Wexford.

Yesterday, I attended my first photowalk! It's an organised photographic expedition, or something like that. This event was held at the Boro Valley Strawberry farm near Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford. Murt welcomed us with open arms, and a cup of coffee, and a hope that they might get to use some of the images from the day on their new website.



Murt brought us up to the glasshouses - these are where the "Elsanta" berries grow, on suspended shelves at about waist height.



The temperature and humidity in the greenhouse are computer controlled, and it opens vents and water pipes as required. Pollination, though is a little more old-school. A hive is placed at about 5 or 6 locations throughout the greenhouse, and each hive's bees has it's own patch of about 10 000 plants to look after - this was something I hadn't thought about!



The berries are all picked and packaged by hand - in any event it's hard to imagine any machine being gentle enough to pick the fruit without damaging the beautiful skin and texture of the berries. These were some of the sweetest and most succulent strawberries I've ever had.



Just look at the colour!





After visiting another polytunnel with another variety of strawberries that were a couple of weeks from harvest (though some were ready to eat and were almost (almost, mind) nicer than the Elsanta), we took a couple of shots of the farmgate stand. Here, as well as punnets of strawberries, the Murphys sell a selection of potatoes, tomatoes and juices direct to the lucky punter that stops (and it'd be well worth it!)  by on the Enniscorthy-New Ross road.



The other walkers will have better photos than I of this next portion of the morning, I am inexperienced (and ill-equipped!) at the use of flash but I was reasonably happy with the pics I got. The Murphys spent the morning baking and preparing some amazing gateaux and cakes with their strawberries - recipes will be on their website I'm assured! Others had brought lamps and a white background helped to isolate the samples.







After photographing them, it was a shame to have to destroy these beautiful cakes by eating. (er no, not really!)

So thanks to all at Boro Valley for having us down there, and I wish them all the best with their new website and hope it helps to bring business. The product is certainly right!



And thanks to the photowalk.ie gang, this was my first and hopefully not my last. It's great to have an impetus as well as an unusual subject or location.



More pics, as ever, at http://pix.ie/brianp/album/411480

Thanks for reading!