Spring in Columbia may signal finals and the end of the school year, but c’mon, strawberry season is just beginning.

Cottle Strawberry Farm opened for the spring in late March. Despite opening a week later than usual, the field in Richland County is full of ripe strawberries and packed with people.

“This year, the strawberries are exceptional,” Cottle employee Frances Smith said. “Every day this week has been busy.”

Warm temperatures and sun hit the Midlands in early April, drawing people out of their homes and into the outdoor patch. 

Sisters Jazhara and Zalika Solan ventured out to the strawberry farm last Friday afternoon, finding an excuse to embrace the weather.

“It’s been cold, it’s spring, the heat is out, the bugs are out, let’s have fun,” Zalika Solan said.

It was the first time the two had been to Cottle Strawberry Farm’s current location, at 9560 Garners Ferry Road.

In 2020, the Cottle family purchased the old Sedgewood Golf Course and converted the acres into six fields of strawberry plants, growing up to four different varieties of berries. 

Business continued to boom after the family added an agri-tourism park in 2024, which features 20 acres of attractions, including fun slides and corn mazes. 

“Oh, it’s been a tremendous change,” said Elaine Shealy, a Cottle employee of 12 years who witnessed firsthand the location change. “They bought the whole golf course, and they developed all these strawberry fields in here. … The business is exploding.” 

Although Cottle’s previous site is no longer open to the public, the business uses it for commercial harvesting and for additional space to grow their primary crop: strawberries.

The farm’s signature strawberries are planted in October and grown throughout the winter using an underground irrigation system and tarps to keep the frost away. The tarps are lifted only when there’s no sign of frost. 

In springs like the one this year, when temperatures fluctuate frequently, the strawberries take a little longer to reach peak flavor. 

“It slows the growth and the ripening process,” said Shealy. “We need lots of sunshine to speed up the process of the berries getting ripe and sweet.” 

Visitors such as the Solan sisters said the difference in quality is noticeable.

“We were really craving, like, really sweet strawberries, and we don’t really get that in the grocery store,” Jazhara Solan said. “So we were like, oh, it’d be better if we came out here and picked some for ourselves.”

As the sisters walked down the rows, they scanned for the brightest red berries. 

“We should look for the ones that are, like, red all the way to the top by the leaves,” Jazhara Solan said. “I think those are going to be, like, the ripest and the best.”

Aside from the sweet strawberries, a sweet group of co-workers is what makes Cottle Strawberry Farm stand out to employees like Shealy. 

“I love the people. I love the owners,” Shealy said. “I mean, I couldn’t ask for any better people to work for. I just love everything about it.”