Summertime blues

By Lenny C. Lepola

newsguy@ee.net

Almost every­one loves blue­ber­ries. They’ll buy one of those 8-ounce pack­ages at the super­mar­ket, and soon after they’re home the blue­ber­ries are gone. Eaten by the hand­ful, that half-pound of blue­ber­ries lasts about 10 minutes.

Most blue­ber­ries we get at the mar­ket are adver­tised as fresh, but they can’t be that fresh shipped from dis­tant states like Michi­gan, Maine, Florida, or Cal­i­for­nia. Some even come from Mex­ico, Chile, or Argentina.

It is pos­si­ble to get fresh blue­ber­ries in cen­tral Ohio, fresh-picked right off the plant; you can even pick your own, have fun out­doors, and save money along the way. All you have to do is drive to Berry­field Farm in Cen­ter­burg and pick all the fresh blue­ber­ries you want for $2.85 a pound.

Berry­field Farm is a retire­ment busi­ness ven­ture of Mike Furbee and Mag­gie Fen­ton. Furbee is in the process of retir­ing from West Vir­ginia Uni­ver­sity, Fen­ton is a retired IT consultant.

A widow and a wid­ower, the blue­berry afi­ciona­dos met seven years ago. They were look­ing for a place for them to retire some­where between cen­tral Ohio and Mor­gan­town, West Virginia.

“We wanted it to be in the coun­try, have room for a big gar­den, room to grow things, some woods, a pond, a house that might need some work but not a com­plete re-do,” Fen­ton said. “We looked at a num­ber of won­der­ful places and one of us would look at the other and say some­thing like: Well, house is nice, place is nice … so we move here. Then what? After months, maybe a cou­ple of years of this, it became obvi­ous that we would not be happy retir­ing to a life of play­ing golf or bridge.”

In late sum­mer, 2010, Fenton’s daugh­ter, Leah, sent her an e-mail that she had received from the owner of Berry­field Farm. He said he was sell­ing and wanted to give his pick­ers first dibs at the place. Leah thought her mother and Mike should look at it. They did. They talked. They stud­ied. And they bought it.

What they bought was 20.5 acres with almost four acres planted in four high-bush blue­berry vari­eties — Blueray and Blue­crop that were ready for pick­ing in mid-June, Cov­ille that are just now hit­ting their peak, and Elliott’s that should pro­duce for another month.

It wasn’t exactly a turnkey pur­chase. The pre­vi­ous owner had not been able to main­tain the farm well for a num­ber of years due to some health issues and it needed tend­ing; and the crop is a favorite roost­ing place of star­lings, an inva­sive species that can wipe out a blue­berry crop if not kept at bay. Last year they were almost wiped out by star­lings, this year they’ve net­ted a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the field.

“Mike had grown blue­ber­ries many years ago; and I’d grown up on a farm and have grown things all my adult life,” Fen­ton said. “We did this with eyes open … or at least mostly open. We knew it would be a lot of work, but some days I think we under­es­ti­mated just how much it would be.

“This is our sec­ond sea­son,” Fen­ton con­tin­ued. “The first win­ter, we pruned in foot deep snow and 10 degree weather. We can prune from the first freeze in the fall until the first sign of growth appears. The first two win­ters were pretty intense because the field hadn’t been pruned in awhile, but we’re hop­ing it will be a bit eas­ier if we keep up with it now.”

Furbee said Berry­field Farm is tech­ni­cally not an organic oper­a­tion, but it does come close. Furbee and Fen­ton fol­low Fruit Grow­ers Asso­ci­a­tion plant­ing and cul­ti­va­tion guidelines.

“We take a sus­tain­able approach to tend the berries,” Furbee said. “We don’t want to eat berries that have been sprayed and treated with chem­i­cals, and we wouldn’t sell our cus­tomers any­thing we wouldn’t eat.”

And cus­tomers are the true test of pro­duce qual­ity, Furbee said. Some have returned three, four, even five times this sea­son to pick more berries; many cus­tomers drive an hour to get to Berry­field Farm.

“Our cus­tomers are great; they’re sup­port­ive and have great ideas for us,” Furbee said. “We’ve had a lot of first timers who’ve never picked a berry in their lives and some who have been pick­ing berries since they could walk. We have mul­ti­ple gen­er­a­tions who come with chil­dren and grand­chil­dren. Most all of them enjoy the peace and quiet of being in the country.”

Berry­field Farm is also turn­ing into a fam­ily project. Fenton’s son Scott has been a bee­keeper for over 12 years (beehavenacres.com). The farm has four — soon to be nine — hives that help pol­li­nate berries and pro­duce honey sold dur­ing berry pick­ing sea­son; daugh­ter Leah (baddogacres.com) is an herbal­ist and has done herbal walks and lessons at the farm to teach peo­ple how to use native plants to make teas, balms, and poultices.

That’s not all, Fen­ton said. A sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the acreage is planted in tree vari­eties suit­able for Christ­mas trees.

“We didn’t know we were get­ting a Christ­mas tree farm too until a friend from West Vir­ginia who owns one there came to visit and told us that’s exactly what we had,” Fen­ton explained. “Now, he comes yearly to help us trim the trees. We plan to open for a cou­ple of weeks before Christ­mas for peo­ple to cut their own tree. We also had a wreath-making work­shop before Christ­mas last year using ever­greens, holly, and other native mate­ri­als from the farm. This year we might add a Thanks­giv­ing cen­ter­piece workshop.”

But right now Berry­field Farm is all about pick­ing your own blue­ber­ries — at least until the end of the sea­son; and pick­ing your own is a great fam­ily out­ing. Blueray and Blue­crop vari­eties are ripe but thin­ning out, Cov­ille is peak­ing, and Elliott’s will round out the sea­son that ends in early August.

Hours change with the sea­son, but right now you can pick your own blue­ber­ries at Berry­field Farm Mon­day through Fri­day from 8 a.m. until 12-noon, on Sat­ur­day from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., and on Sun­day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Hours are updated weekly at berryfieldfarm.com.

Evening pick­ing hours are by appoint­ment — call 740–625-7278 and leave a mes­sage, or e-mail info@berryfieldfarm.com.

Berry­field Farm is located at 6424 Town­ship Road 199, Cen­ter­burg. To get to Berry­field Farm from Sun­bury travel north on Route 3, go through Cen­ter­burg and turn left on 314 (just after Memo­r­ial Park), and left on Town­ship Road 199. Berry­field Farm is on the left. You can’t miss it. The sign says Blueberries.

Lenny C. Lep­ola is a reporter for The Sun­bury News.