14 hours ago, Tri2Cook said:
Those are frowned upon by the local pickers here. It adds a lot of debris to the berries and, I'm told, if not used properly, can damage or pull up the plants. Unless they're picking out the leaves, green berries and assorted other detritus before selling them, that job falls to the buyer. At that price, I better not have to do anything except eat them. Most pickers here hand pick and it's very rare to find anything in the pail other than nice ripe berries. Takes longer to hand pick but you don't have to pick through them before selling or using so it ends up pretty even time-wise in the end.
Totally agreed. They certainly damage the plants as they strip leaves along with berry. Though when he produced that large quantity and said he picked them in an hour, I knew it certainly wasn't by 'hand'.
If you ever need to offload some berries and don't mind shipping to Thornhill, I will happily pay your wife's prices 
Edited to add - as I was fishing at the cottage last weekend, I kept thinking of Kerry's fish hook tales and ensuring I was ever so careful in my actions as I did not want to become part of a tale myself! lol.
