It is almost time to find your picking buckets as the area’s fruit producers prepare to welcome you back to their fields. Strawberry patches across the area are already having their first crop starting to come off. That is a couple of weeks earlier than usual for Toni Sorenson, who owns Soren’s Valhalla Orchards in Sturgeon Bay. She admits that the combination of the wet spring and heavy soils did no favors for her strawberry crop this year, but she is happy with what is coming out of it so far.

Sorenson says cherries will also be a couple of weeks earlier than usual. She adds that even if this year's crop is lighter, it will be a relief for the trees after two years of bearing lots of fruit during dry summers.

The wet spring will continue into early summer, with at least a 40 percent chance of rain in the forecast for seven of the next ten days.

Photo courtesy of Kathas_Fotos and Pixabay