POTEET, Texas — If you reap what you sow in Poteet, Texas, everything seems to come up sweeter.

Ruth Ann Schultze ought to know. She's been planting and picking strawberries for years. It takes a golf cart to get around to all of her strawberry fields.

“I’ve got 64,000 plants. That’s almost four acres,” said Schultze.

And don’t think all strawberries are created equal. They come in all shapes and sizes with different names.

“Camino Real, that’s my favorite,” said Schultze.

Her strawberries have roots that go way back. Schultze’s parents moved to Poteet in the early 1950s. Her dad spent years trying to make better berries. You could say he planted the seed early in Ruth Ann.

“There were housewives that would come out and buy strawberries all the time. That was my job to sell to the housewives,” said Schultze.

Ruth Ann’s father died in 2016. That’s when her love for the berry went full-blown. She planted more and more plants and even lets people pick their own. Schultze says it’s not exactly the same path her dad took, but it paid off when she won Grower of the Year in 2019.

“It just kind of dawned on me afterwards, like, ’This is the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Now I’m showing you what I can really do,’” said Schultze.

When it comes to her berries and the store-bought brand, there’s no comparison.

“When you pick it on the bush and its as ripe as it is now, maybe too ripe, you’re going to get a sweet, sweet, sweet taste,” said Schultze. “You want to pick them as red as possible because that’s as ripe as they’ll ever get.”

Growing row after row of sweet strawberries takes a lot of hard work. Schultze says she’ll keep planting and picking for as long as she can, honoring her roots and her dad every step of the way.