A freeze warning is in effect starting Sunday at midnight and ending Monday at 8 a.m. With that warning in effect, a local fruit farm is busy preparing to protect their plants.
Barthel Fruit Farm in Mequon says they will be up all night Sunday monitoring their strawberry fields and apple orchards.
Bob Barthel is a fourth generation owner and farmer at Barthel Fruit Farm and says Sunday will be the fourth time this week that he's stayed up all night inspecting his fields.
"We watch our temperatures, we monitor when we're close to losing the flowers," he said. "For strawberries, we start irrigation and water the fields. Apples, we have a hope and a prayer."
The irrigation on the strawberry fields helps frost or ice from forming on the plants. Without irrigation, Barthel says they would have lost about 75-percent of their crop this week.
So far, they haven't lost anything. But they will have to keep a close watch on the weather for the next month.
"We don't feel like we're out of the woods until some time in late May or early June," said Nino Ridgway, who takes care of the nursery at Barthel.
During a freeze warning, she has to make sure all plants are moved into a greenhouse or covered. And she recommends at home gardeners take the same precautions.
"If people have things out that shouldn't be out yet, they need to bring them back in or cover them up," she said.
The farm is hoping after Tuesday they will have a stretch of warm weather. Barthel says he plans to start selling pick-your-own strawberries around Father's Day. He will also have sugar snap peas around that time.
He sells primarily from his farm, located at 12246 N. Farmdale Rd in Mequon. He also sells at local farmer's markets and Outpost.
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