The last harvest at Engelberry Farm Matushaks prepare for a “berry sweet” retirement

Engleberry Farm owners Jeannine and Mike Matushak of Merrill are preparing for retirement, after managing their strawberry business located on Hwy. 107 north of Merrill for decades, and they say the prospect of more free time is “berry sweet” indeed.
This berry-picking season marks the last strawberry harvest that will take place at Engelberry Farm. There have been a number of picking days already this month, with days they are closed in between to allow more strawberries to ripen or due to rainy weather. But when the strawberries are finished for the 2026 harvesting season, so too, Engelberry Farm will close the book on a longstanding Merrill tradition for many Merrill-area families of going out to the fields on Hwy. 107 to go berry picking.

A business purchased from the farm’s namesake
The first chapter in the Engelberry Farm saga dates back to 1967 when Harold and Hildegard Engel planted the first strawberries on the property. After farming the property for many years, they too were getting ready to retire.
Meanwhile, Mike—who had worked for Miller Strawberries in the area for a time—had started his own strawberry patch in the town of Stettin in 1986 before he and Jeannine were married. That strawberry field, known as Mike’s Berries, was taking root in the community south of Merrill.

A few years after Mike was getting his business established there, Harold called him to inquire if the couple might be interested in expanding their strawberry business and purchasing Engelberry Farm.
“Harold called up and asked if we wanted to do the strawberries on his farm. They were retiring and getting out of the business,” Mike said.
The rest, as they say, is history. The Matushaks purchased the 100-acre property and operated both the Mike’s Berries and Engelberry Farm properties at once for several years, living in an apartment in downtown Merrill while they paid down the business before building their own house on the property in 1994. In 2018, with their daughters grown, they closed the Stettin operation to focus solely on the Merrill property.

Changes make strawberry farming harder
For nearly four decades, the Matushaks have worked the strawberry farm, planting, weeding, and picking. They’ve cared for the fields in the off-season and they’ve stayed up nights worrying about their plants when late frost threatens their crop.

After all these years, one would think things would have gotten easier. But on the contrary, the math on strawberries has gotten harder, the couple said. Picking seasons that used to run a reliable three to four weeks have shrunk dramatically in recent years because of wetter, less predictable weather.
“It used to be that we were open consistently probably 21 to 25 days for picking,” Jeannine said. “[Now] We are not getting that.”
She said growers elsewhere in the region have had it worse. “The last couple years I was listening to growers down in Dorchester. They said they picked for five days last year. That’s all they got.”
Mike said the financial reality of small-scale strawberry farming has only gotten tougher as other jobs pay more for less physical strain.
“You could not make a living on just strawberries,” Mike said. “You can go work somewhere else and make more money than you can if you work twice as hard, even though it’s your own business.”
Both Matushaks held outside jobs for most of their farming years. Jeannine taught for 30 years and Mike worked elsewhere in addition to the farm as well. It’s part of why they understand why so few young growers are stepping in to take over patches like theirs as longtime owners retire.

Plans for a sweet future
Despite stepping away from growing, the Matushaks aren’t selling the land. They plan to keep all of the farm’s roughly 100 acres and continue renting the cropland to another local farmer, partly to preserve the rural feel they’ve enjoyed for more than 30 years. Mike also plans to build a pair of small greenhouses on the property for the family garden and their own produce.“
Just a couple little greenhouses to keep us busy,” Mike said. “Something to have, you know.”
The only thing sweeter than a fresh-picked, sun-ripened strawberry from Engelberry Farm might be retirement.

“The sound of retirement is berry sweet,” Jeannine said.
Retirement, for the Matushaks, doesn’t mean slowing down so much as redirecting all that energy. Jeannine runs two or three times a week, mountain bikes, and belongs to a group called WAEGO —Women Actively Enjoying the Great Outdoors.
“It’s a group of a hundred women from central Wisconsin, mostly the Wausau area,” Jeannine said. “They have activities planned. You probably get 20 at a time for either one of the activities.” She has enjoyed hikes, canoe trips, and other outings with the group.
“That has been a great group for her,” Mike said.
Mike himself enjoys running, biking, and staying active, as well, and is looking forward to golfing a lot more with old high school friends.
“We’re going to do all of those things that we’ve watched our friends be able to do,” Jeannine said, “such as going camping, doing a little bit of traveling, spending time with our new grandchild, working in our garden any time that we want, going up north for a day, going to see some waterfalls.”
The couple’s retirement bucket list also includes travel to national parks, where Jeannine has been working through a national park stamp book, and downsizing—going through a lifetime of possessions to weed out what they no longer need or want.
Mike said they won’t be bored. “We’ve got a lot to do.”

With deep gratitude
As much as the Matushaks are looking forward to what’s next, they said what they’ll remember most is the community that grew up around their strawberry patch over all these years, including generations of teenagers who worked the cash register and the pick-your-own rows.

“We are very appreciative of all the support we’ve gotten from our community throughout the years,” Jeannine said. “We’re grateful for the customers that have come in, that have picked and made our business successful. We’ve had generations of kids, families, where the mothers worked for us and then their kids worked for us.”
If strawberry picking for homemade strawberry shortcake and making preserves is a time-honored summer tradition, there are still a few days left for area residents to get out to the fields. The Matushaks said they expect to stay open through the Fourth of July before closing down for their final season.
For the Matushaks, the season ahead is really just the start of a much longer one.
“The sound of retirement,” Jeannine said, “is berry sweet.”