Choosing produce is a popular metaphor for dating, and while picking strawberries at Johnson’s Corner Farm in Medford, N.J., my friend and I discover that there are also parallels to rejecting suitors. Kneeling down to examine the available goods, one has a sense that there is always a better berry out there, and that if one keeps looking beyond the foliage the ideal will be made visible, ripe and attractive and ready for the plucking. The metaphor, with enough patience, could probably be extended to account for bruises, mold and the low-hanging berry. But the point is, it is raining, the mud is pooling between the rows of plants and in the crevices of our sneakers, and yet we cannot pull ourselves away from the possibility of the best pick ever.

This year, due to the relentless, biblical torrents, strawberry season has come much later than usual, beginning in early June as opposed to the third week of May. Strawberry season lasts three to four weeks, during which time local pick-your-own farms typically pull out the pony rides and the Moonbounce for an out-and-out strawberry jamboree. But these too have been delayed with the inclement weather. Both Johnson's Corner Farm and Linvilla Orchards in Media have postponed their strawberry festivals until this weekend.

Even on non-festival days, a visit to a pick-your-own farm can give city folk a glimpse at a different way of life. A "hayride" --actually a tractor with a covered wagon whose floor has been sprinkled with straw -- transports us from the barn-shaped country store and bakery to the field. It runs all day, and for $1.50, it is cheaper and only slightly less convenient than SEPTA.

Once in the field, knees aching, strawberry mold under our fingernails, we feel decidedly agro. It is peaceful out there, away from traffic and noise, and the repetitive motion lulls us into the meditation found between inactivity and hard labor. But for all the serenity there is one remaining city-bred anxiety: that someone will impinge on our strawberry-picking turf. Luckily, the only other two people undaunted by the weather maintain a respectful distance a few rows away.

The berries we find are small, as the lack of sun has reduced them to pygmy stature. Still, small strawberries are often the sweetest and Linvilla's manager Rob Ferber assures would-be fruit gatherers that it is an excellent year for berries. Linvilla, which is the mack daddy of local pick-your-own farms, has expanded its strawberry acreage this year to include six varieties, thanks to farm manager Norm Schultz, a strawberry-growing specialist. Schultz explains that Linvilla grows California varieties usually only available to East Coasters well after a few days of transport has rendered them less flavorful. Pick-your-own strawberries are meant for retail and not wholesale eaters; they are both sweeter and more perishable.

Norm Schultz shares another interesting fact: The heart-shaped berry we think of as the fruit is actually a receptacle for multiple -- on average, 200 -- tiny fruits, what we think of as the seeds. Munching on a few of my selections while waiting for the return hayride I ponder this, as well as the axiom that there is no strawberry like the one you pick. And it is true, they do taste better, even if they are merely packaging.

It is possible to pick strawberries, at least for the next couple weeks, seven days a week, all day long. Both Johnson's and Linvilla offer evening picking hours. A person can conceivably pick hundreds of dollars' worth of produce. Indeed, at Johnson's, it is not uncommon for part-owner Pete Johnson to observe volume pickers, or "gals in three-foot straw hats picking 50 pounds of strawberries."

This is another maxim of fruit picking: Pickers, and not just the volume kind, are greedy. In the end my friend and I each come away with a cardboard tray of berries, some of which have shameful white tips, simply because we could not resist and hold out for the perfectly ripe ones. The total cache costs less than $10 and it is far more than each of us can reasonably expect to eat within a week. This is, after all, the point. The preserves and the shortcakes and the pies and the muffins are simply ways of justifying the frenzied urges that overtake people, especially city people, when faced with natural bounty. And cherry season is just a couple of weeks away.

Linvilla Orchards, 137 West Knowlton Rd., Media, 610-876-7116; Johnson’s Corner Farm, 133 Church Rd., Medford, N.J., 609-654-8643.