Western Bay of Plenty residents may find it hard to get strawberries in the lead up to Christmas after heavy weekend rain destroyed a large volume of fruit at the region's biggest strawberry garden.

Richard Somerfield inspects the strawberry crops on Monday.

Management at Somerfields on Oropi Road are still counting the costs from the heavy rain, but say the impact on the garden's supply is ‘huge'.

Heavy moisture has a major impact on strawberries, rendering the fruit unfit for consumption.

Richard Somerfield says they were preparing for the busiest week of the year, but is now unsure if they will have enough strawberries to keep up with demand.

'We are so busy trying to clean up the mess that we haven't had time to sit down and see where we are.”

'We hope to have strawberries here for the ones that come, but at this stage we can't make any promises.”

Richard says the price of strawberries will not be increased.

'We picked an awful lot before the rain came. If it stays fine and we can get the rubbish off, things will be better, but there's a long way to go yet.”

Somerfields staff spent Monday trying to pick as much strawberries as they could and then freezing the fruit.

'We have 10 people going out, going through the strawberry patch and we are freezing the strawberries they pick.”

'We're freezing what's good enough to freeze and throwing away what's not.”