Bellevue Botanical Garden is a beautiful place. And the fact that it is always free too! It's open…read moreevery day even holidays! To be a small botanical garden, there's a nice walking path and many, many beautiful flowers and plants to see. There are often local community events hosted here. Activities for the young to adults. They have classes that you can find and sign up for on their website as well. And the classes are affordable!! You may even see people taking wedding photos here because again it's beautiful. The park is ADA friendly. The path is dirt and pebbled but can be navigated with a wheelchair. There are bathrooms on site and a small shop. I have never purchased bulbs or plants from here but I know there is a big community around that. The coffee shop in the garden can get busy. But a benefit is we were able to charge my husband's wheelchair there on a visit. While the park is open every day, the coffee shop is not. Definitely this should be a spot for all locals. And not just a one time visit either.

This was a nice little find. We got here late as my sister had to take her son to this de's appt…read more By the time we got to Seattle, it was already 1 pm. Once the entire family met up, we climbed back into the car and headed to Bellevue. Not sur if it was due to the time. But we were surprised there was a lot of parking available. We spent a good 2-hrs here which included getting lost and finding other street entries into the botanical park from a school and from other busy street corner at the bottom of the park. Nice and shaded, quiet little creeks, plenty of seating for those that were inspired to journal, plenty of elderly people using this time to exercise and stretch. We enjoyed the different areas like the swinging bridge, the Japanese garden and even the little cafe they have there. Fairly priced items and plenty of tables to enjoy a refreshment and snack. By the time we were done, the gift shop was already closed. So I took the opportunity to drop a donation into the box instead.

We visited Bailey Family Farm on the very first day of strawberry picking for the year (Jun 1)…read moreright after lunch. They had their fields filled with their earliest variety, Sweet Sunrise, with tons and tons of gigantic berries ready for harvest. When I say tons, I mean it - each plant was flush with berries, and it barely took us 30 minutes to basically fill up our entire flat. They also had a limited number of Shuksan and Rainier strawberries, and some barely ripe Totems available for U Pick. We ended up picking an entire box with Sweet Sunrise and two smaller pints of Shuksan and Rainier. Sweet Sunrise - These are a deep crimson red both inside and out. They are large (averaging around 33g each), but large doesn't necessarily mean better. In this case, the taste is kind of diluted down by the amount of water inside. The most ripe and soft ones are sweet and fragrant, but the vast majority are somewhat diluted in flavor. Even the sourness is dilute. The berries are mostly soft and tender. These are still really great strawberries, but are more muted in flavor compared to some of the smaller varieties. Shuksan - This is the 2nd time I've eaten Shuksans and the 2nd time I've been a little disappointed. These are medium size berries, coming in at around 15.5g each. They are extremely sour, making me pucker with every bite. They are also quite a bit firmer than the other two strawberries, even the darker crimson ones. Quite possibly it's too early in the season for these. I'll have to come back later to try more. These have the most lumps and mutant individuals with tons of multiple fused berries. Rainier - This is probably my 2nd favorite variety of strawberry after Hoods (last year, I ate half a flat every week when these were available). It's really early in the season, so there weren't too many available for us to pick. The ones that we were able to locate fill the mouth with a delightful, strong and potent strawberry fragrance. Unfortunately most are quite a bit on the sour side - the ones in the coming weeks will probably be more sweet. Size is by far the smallest, coming in at around 12g per. The berries are really soft and teeth slice through them like warm butter. They are more acidic and are the only strawberry variety to cause me some stomach issues. We visited again the following Monday and the plants were noticeably skimpier. The leftover Sweet Sunrise were only a third the size of previous, and mostly not as ripe. There were more ripe Shuksans, Totems, Rainiers, and even some Tillamooks, Puget Crimsons, and Mary's Peaks ready. Just some quick notes for these: Tillamook - 24.4g avg, 6.2 brix, varying shape, awful variety, even the super red ones are ridiculously sour. Even beyond the sour, they taste awful. The juice is sour, bitter, nasty, the worst. Puget Crimson - 35.8g avg, 8.2 brix, caps really easily, didn't pick a single strawberry where the cap stayed on. Very conical in shape. Really dark red color. Stronger flavor than tillamook and more sweet, but still quite sour. Expected more flavor for being so dark red. Juice is dark in color, no particular distinguishing characteristics. Mary's Peak - 18.8g avg, 8.4 brix, leaves stay attached, some even have stems. Mostly conical in shape but some wider. Really noticeable seeds, can feel them protruding out of the skin. Very pronounced sweeter but mild flavor, some grassy notes. Juice has some candy element like pixie sticks but more sour. Really love the juice. Sweet Sunrise - 17.2g avg, 7.3 brix, half the size of the ones picked the previous week and not nearly as good. Not as ripe I guess so they don't cap nearly as easily. Deep red color, but more sour than sweet. Shuksan - 17.6g avg, 8 brix, Lumpy strawberries, lots of them fused together into big half moon shapes. Great flavor complexity, nasal, strong strawberry flavor, a little perfumey. More stem quality in the flavor, vegetal not bitter, probably because the pith/stem area stays attached more. Juice normal and bright. I liked these way more than the previous week. Rainier - 12.2g avg, 9.5 brix, most of the ripe ones have holes in them from birds and slugs. Aromatic, sweet but sour. Super perfumey elements. Best in flavor. Juice astringent surprisingly not as sweet as the brix would imply, more acidic instead. I like eating the whole berry more than juiced. Thanks to Bailey Farm having so many varieties, this kind of turned into a little science experiment. What else can I say other than that I will definitely be back next year for more strawberries. As a side note: I really wish farms grew Hood strawberries around here. Maybe we just don't have the right climate and soil for that variety? Those are my favorite by far, with the most sweetness (one batch I measured this year when down in Portland was 16 brix!) and best flavor complexity.

I came here with my parents the other day to do some strawberry picking while they were visiting…read more We all had a great time and got some delicious strawberries! The parking lot for pickers is just north of the address on Yelp but they had plenty of signs that made it easy to find. You have to go down a gravel road to get there so keep that in mind if you don't want your car getting dirty. They had quite a few rows of strawberries for picking, and had 4 different varieties available. We also saw some apple trees where the apples were growing for picking in the fall and some peach trees. They also have veggies to pick but we didn't walk that far back. A lot of the strawberry plants had been pretty picked over but still had plenty of fruit if you pulled up the leaves and looked. We ended up picking about 3 lbs of fruit to take home. The fields are super dusty so make sure to wear sneakers you don't care about because they will get covered in dirt. We enjoyed a relaxing time picking berries and enjoying the beautiful views. I will definitely be back with my husband and daughter to enjoy picking some more fruit.

We visited Duris Strawberry Farm on the first day of strawberry picking (Jun 13, 2026) and it was a…read morecomplete madhouse. This was about 30 minutes after opening and the small parking lot was completely full. Cars were parked haphazardly all along the street, making it difficult for two way traffic (we had to drive on the grass). Luckily as soon as we pulled into the parking lot a car reversed out. Score! Picking is hectic but organized. They give boxes out at the main stall and have a flag system to mark how far down the row has been picked. The problem is that most people didn't actually use the flags. On the other hand, it's not like the rows were picked very well in the first place. We started at a random one in the middle and there were still plenty of huge and juicy ripe strawberries even on the first couple of plants. We ended up filling our entire box, weighing in at 8.25 pounds by around half way down the row. At $4.75 that was almost $40 in strawberries! The employees said that they would rotate to a second field of strawberries later in the day for more fresh picking. The strawberry variety of the day was Puget Crimson. Since this was the first day, the cream of the crop were still available, meaning huge, juicy, flavorful, ripe strawberries all over. Puget Crimson typically seen at farm stands and markets are medium and small size; these were massive, with the larger ones averaging over 35 grams a piece. Nicely sweet too - I measured a mash of five strawberries at 10.9 brix and a second at 12.1 brix! This particular variety has a decent amount of acidity, but are all full flavored, unlike the first pick of Sweet Sunrise I had a couple of weeks ago, which were huge but somewhat watery. They are deep red/crimson in color, especially for the extremely ripe ones, and mostly conical, although we found a small number of mutants, one looking like 4 or 5 strawberries fused together! Check out is easy. Pro-Tip: there are two checkout lines, one on each side of the stall. The line furthest away from the pathway to the strawberry fields seems to always be shorter. In my case, only 3 groups in line instead of 20+ groups. Warning: these strawberries are planted on top of very sandy dirt, which sticks to the strawberries. Even after soaked and scrubbing, dirt still sticks onto the skin! I will definitely be revisiting Duris Strawberry Farm next year for their first day of strawberry picking!

We stopped and bought some strawberries today and they were spectacular. We received the tip to…read morevisit Duris today from our waitress Lisa at Mama Stortini's during lunch. She said they have great produce so we stopped there on the way home along River road and I'm so glad we did. They had big juicy sweet strawberries picked today just like she said. It was a great tip so I'm paying it forward for anyone who is looking for strawberries. It's best to call them before you go since when they run out, they close and we barely made in time after a late lunch. They only had a few half flats of strawberries bu the time we got there. GPS got us there the back way but once we found it, I have to say it's very easy to find.