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By JOYANNA LOVE |Managing Editor

The Sugar Hill Farms strawberry patch will be at a new location this season.

Michelle Evans of Sugar Hill said the patch had been at the same location for the past 16 years, and the change would give the land a chance to rest.

“We are going to be just right around the corner,” Evans said.

The strawberry patch, which has the opportunity to pick your own, will now be at 812 County Road 445 in Verbena.

“It is less than a mile from the old patch,” Evans said. “… We have about the same amount of strawberries about 200,000 plants.”

She said the plan is to stay at the new location “for several years, and then we will come back to where we were.”

At the new location, Sugar Hill will have an expanded playground and new produce shed. Swings and a sand area, which have been popular in the past, will be at the new location. A tire mountain slide will be added.  In addition to strawberries, the produce shed will be selling lettuce, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and collards this year.

This new infrastructure should be complete next week. Evans said the patch hopes to open next week, but cold weather expected this weekend may delay opening until Thursday because the strawberries will need to be covered.

She said the crop this year is “looking really good.”

“This is going to be the earliest that we’ve picked in a long time, for several years,” Evans said. “They (the plants) are doing really well. They are getting really loaded up with berries, and they are looking really good. We are hoping to have a great season.”

She enjoys eating strawberries by themselves or with ice cream.

Once the season starts, Sugar Hill will be open Monday and Tuesday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday-Friday 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.