We just finished up with our 8th season of welcoming you-pickers to our back yard, which happens to include three acres of northern highbush blueberries. This has been an interesting venture – helps pay for our farm, obviously, but also presents an opportunity to connect with the “general public” outside of academia [that probably wouldn’t happen otherwise, considering we are both introverts]. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the folks that take the trouble to come to a you-pick are fabulous, functional human beings.… Continue reading this article “Observations regarding you-pick blueberries…”
Tag: small fruits
Consternation in the You-Pick Field
It’s high season at our blueberry farm. Each morning, the yard fills with cars (at 7:00 a.m. – aargh) and eager blueberry pickers hit our four acres of Northern Highbush berries. No late freezes, lots of hard work by our honey bees, and good rainfall have added up to a blockbuster crop. Certainly helps with the mortgage.
Running a you-pick ( U-Pick makes me itch) farm is an …interesting experience. Upside – you do the picking, we weigh the buckets, we take the money – $2.40/lb + tax.… Continue reading this article “Consternation in the You-Pick Field”
Duty Calls
As retirements have decimated our Horticulture Department’s faculty ranks, I find myself in the interesting position of teaching a course in small fruit production next fall semester. I’m working on the syllabus as was speak (hence this post). If you’ve read my bio (“About Us”), you’ll see that this is not my bag. But our students are clamoring for fruit and vegetable production courses, so someone’s got to do it. We are also currently without on-campus vegetable faculty, if you can believe it.… Continue reading this article “Duty Calls”