Its first strawberry season is sweet for a Pownal farm.

Strawberry season in Maine lasts three or four precious weeks, and depending on the weather, maybe not even that long. So when a pick-your-own strawberry farm opens, especially one new to the area, people are ready.

One day last week, Martha Sheldon was waiting in her car for Bradbury Mountain Berry Farm in Pownal to open. When co-owner Dwight Ely turned his sign around to indicate picking was in progress, Sheldon made for the garden out back.

“These strawberries are gorgeous,” said Sheldon, a Sumner resident who is staying in a local motel. “I’m taking these to a wedding.”

Sheldon said she hadn’t picked her own strawberries on a regular basis for a long time, but clearly was happy to get at it once again.

This is the first “yield season” for the Bradbury Mountain Berry Farm, at 429 Elmwood Road, where Ely and his son, Charlie, have been planting strawberries, raspberries and blueberries for the past couple of years. The Elys will offer pick-your-own raspberries this year, as well, while the blueberry crop is perhaps two years off. Bradbury Mountain Berry Farm is the only pick-your-own berry business in Pownal, Durham or Freeport. Dwight Ely, a retired teacher, and his son purchased the bucolic Pownal farm in 2013.

He and his son know what they’re doing, having run a pick-your-own raspberry and blueberry farm in Scarborough. Dwight Ely and his wife, Laura, still live at the Scarborough farm and still raise blueberries there, while Charlie Ely and his wife, Amy, are living at the Pownal farm.

The Elys have planted 5 acres of strawberries so far, 2 acres of raspberries and 11?2 acres of blueberries.

“We wanted a place where we could expand,” Dwight Ely said. “Down the road when we get enough acres planted, we are hoping it will be a self-sustaining operation.

Bradbury Mountain Berry Farm began selling strawberries from its roadside stand on June 15, but didn’t open its pick-your-own operation until June 30. They have four varieties of strawberries, including Cavendish, Jewell, Flavorfest and Sparkle.

The Elys are hoping the strawberry season will last until July 12.

“We’ve only been open for two days and already I feel like I’ve met a good cross-section of Pownal in three days, and Freeport and North Yarmouth and Durham,” Dwight Ely said. “The raspberries will start around July 20.”

John Bott, spokesman for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, did not have specific figures on the number of pick-your-own berry farms in the state. Bott said that such operations, along with corn mazes and pumpkin farms, are among the “agri-tourism” ventures that the state is promoting.

“The u-pick remains popular and it’s part of our overall interest in agri-tourism,” Bott said.

Bott, quoting U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics, said there were 73 agri-tourism businesses in the state in 2002. That number jumped to 270 in 2012.

Charlie Ely works from April through New Year’s Eve selling locally sourced burritos from a cart in Portland. He grows his peppers and tomatoes at the farm, but this time of year, it’s the berries that command attention.

“They kind of run our lives when the season’s going,” he said. “The rain has come at perfect times. We usually open at 8 and tend to close around 4, if we’re not picked out by then.”

Les Ruez, a neighbor from just down the road, picked his share of strawberries, too. His wife was busy in the kitchen while Ruez picked, and he had no trouble answering when asked what he was going to do with his picking.

“Have strawberry shortcake, what else?” Ruez said.

A strawberry picker had great success one day last week at Bradbury Mountain Berry Farm in Pownal. Staff photos by Larry GrardDwight Ely shows off one of his strawberries at Bradbury Mountain Berry Farm in Pownal.All Les Ruez has to do is walk up the road to reach Bradbury Mountain Berry Farm, located at 429 Elmwood Road in Pownal.The wait was worth it for Martha Sheldon of Sumner as she had little trouble picking a lot of strawberries one day last week at Bradbury Mountain Berry Farm in Pownal. Staff photos by Larry Grard