LONDON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Cornett Family Farm in London is drawing customers from counties away this strawberry season — and this year, the berries arrived two weeks earlier than ever before.
Brent Cornett, owner of Cornett Enterprises, said a dry, hot spring and new strawberry varieties helped fuel the early harvest after a brutal 2024 season that wiped out roughly half the farm's crop.
"New disease popped its head up in strawberries last year," Cornett said. "All the transplants come out of Canada and most of the nurseries got infected and so the plants that came in to us came in infected."
The rebound this year brought its own complications: markets weren't ready for the early bounty.
"Weather was great, but with that comes — ya know, normally we have markets ready for this time of year," Cornett said. "Kind of a challenge to move the excess early on because a lot of customers weren't even open yet for some of the other farm markets."
Still, Cornett called it a welcome headache.
"Yeah but that's a good problem to have," Cornett said.
Growing strawberries at this scale is anything but simple. The farm uses a method called plasticulture to jumpstart and improve the harvest across 12 acres. The process begins in early September, when plants go in the ground to take root before cold weather arrives. Workers then cover the entire field with canvases held down by heavy sandbags — a covering that was pulled back and replaced 15 times this season alone as temperatures fluctuated.
"We plant this crop around first week of September, it grows, takes root until we get to colder weather, then at that point we cover the whole field, we have 12 acres of strawberries, with a canvas," Cornett said.
Once the plants bloom, it takes over 50 hired hands bending over rows of strawberries for hours at a time — sometimes from 7 in the morning until 7 or 8 o'clock at night.
"It's a pretty labor intensive and pretty expensive crop to grow for sure," Cornett said.
The effort pays off in flavor. Berries picked ripe and driven just down the road fill gallon baskets at Cornett Farm Fresh, the family's store, where $20 buckets sell fast.
Loyal customers say the wait is worth it.
"They're worth every penny," Shannon, a customer, said. "We wait all year," Shannon said. "My daughter's coming home from college and I knew she wanted a bucket of strawberries when she got home, so that's why I'm here today."
For the Cornetts, an early harvest with too many berries beats the alternative. In farming, the risks grow just as fast as the crop.
Cornett Farm Fresh is located at 319 Kentucky 192 in London. You can follow them on social media to learn where they're selling their strawberries outside of their main location.
