We have 20 acres of blueberries and picking begins around mid-July. The season begins with Duke and many more varieties follow as the season progresses. Many of the varieties are available late July/early August. Our late fall variety starts around Labor Day and has been picked as late as mid-October.
Customers are always encouraged to bring their own ice cream pails. Otherwise, we will provide a pail that can be picked up at our retail. Pails can often be found around the orchard for our customers convenience. The pails are lined with sterile food safe liners. After weighing the pail, we give the customer their blueberries in the food safe liner and take back our pails for reuse.
Our scales are tared to automatically deduct the weight for the average pail.
The orchard has been designed for parking close to the blueberries. We try to accommodate our customers as much as possible. Keep in mind, we may have 400 plus cars on our busiest days. Please let us know of any special needs as we will try our best to accommodate.
On our busiest days, we will have drive up tents for paying with cash or check. Originally an idea grown from the days of covid, we have kept the drive-thru tents since they make paying quick, easy, and less stressful for people with disabilities.
Credit cards and phone payments are accepted in the retail shop along with regular forms of payment.
Duke
The Duke variety is our earliest variety. Depending on the year, the Patriot variety may be available at the same time. We typically pick Duke for three weekends. The third weekend can be dodgy. Sometimes the Duke are simply picked out or the heat and rain get to them. In the 2024 season, we still had die hard fans picking them that fourth weekend due to cool days we had in July.Parking that first few Saturdays can be frustrating because many customers do not realize that there are Duke in both sections of the orchard.
Duke are an excellent berry that has a pleasant sweet flavor. Duke is one of those berries that many customers are deeply divided on. Some think it is the best berry ever! Others would argue that it is our blandest. It is the reason we encourage customers to try the blueberries. Duke is definitely one of those berries that should be tried before picking an entire pail.
Duke is versatile and can eaten fresh, cooked, baked and frozen. Personally, I think it makes a good jam.
Patriot
Patriot Blueberries is one of our largest berries. If spring is early, Patriot blueberries are typically available that first weekend of the season beside the Duke. A late spring will push the Patriots back a week behind the Duke.
The biggest of berries can be the size of a half dollar with the majority being the size of a quarter. There is a lot of variation in size with Patriot blueberries. A lot of the berries can be the size of nickels and dimes as well. Keep in mind, no matter the variety, the biggest berries ripen first. If you miss that first picking, those biggest berries will be gone. In a good season like the 2024 season, people were still finding quarter sized berries that third weekend.
The flavor of the Patriot blueberry is a nice clean and fresh flavor. I often describe in relation to a table grape. Besides people clamoring over the size of the berry, the Patriot have a loyal following as well. Just like the Duke, some people disagree. Some do not find the Patriot to have a blueberry enough flavor or sweetness.
Patriot is a berry that, in my opinion, is a berry for fresh eating and decorating those baked goods or making an impressive fruit tart. With their immense size, they aren’t great for baking. Muffins are more blueberry than muffin.
Blue Jay
The poor Blue Jay get completely overshadowed by the Patriot and Duke. Part of it is has been a struggle growing the variety at the orchard. It is also hard to get a following with a small patch. Many of the berries went to waste in 2024. With the Duke and Patriot being so overloaded with blueberries, it seemed silly trying to get people to pick the Blue Jay.
The Blue Jay is similar in size to the Duke. The skin of the Blue Jay is a little firmer so they pop a little bit more when chomping on them. The flavor is nice and sweet. It is a very middle of the road blueberry. I have never heard anybody saying anything bad about Blue Jay.
Blue Jay is an all around berry. It is good for eating, baking and cooking. It can be hard to promote and all around berry like the Blue Jay. It is much easier promoting extremes like the Elliot that are tangy or the Patriot that are gigantic. Maybe it is easier just saying that Blue Jay is just the girl next door of blueberries.
Blue Ray
Blue Ray is one of our tartest blueberries. Blue Ray and Elliot are the two blueberries that I warn people about. However, we have many customers who will only pick the Blue Ray and they do love them. Many who like the Blue Ray also like the Elliot as well. As the pickings progress, the Blue Ray will mellow out and be quite sweet by the third picking. It can be challenging getting customers to pick them if they had experienced a tart Blue Ray. Again, this is why customers should always try the berries. *wink, wink.
There is a lot of variability of when Blue Ray ripen. Some years we are picking them alongside the Patriots. In other years, they can be a couple of weeks later. It can be difficult to give those loyal Blue Ray customers an exact date. Blue Ray ripen when they are ready to ripen.
Blue Ray can be eaten fresh for those who like that zest. Otherwise, with its snap, it is a great berry for when adding lots of sugar like jam and jelly.
Berkelely
For many, many years, Berkeley was probably our most popular blueberry. In 2018, a massive snowstorm dumped three feet of snow and broke the very tall and older Berkeley branches in half. A common fungal pathogen in blueberries caused a blight that year in the damaged branches. We painstakingly pruned the variety down basically to its roots. Luckily, blueberries are regenerative. After many years, the Berkeley grew back returned to production in 2024. Unfortunately, that six year gap caused the berry to lose its fan base. For six years, we struggled to meet demand. However, the Berkeley make up 5 acres of the 20 acres that we have and with that, there is no longer a shortage of berries.
As for the berry itself, I have struggled over the 20 plus years describing the Berkeley berry. During those years, our older clientele appeared to prefer the Berkeley. In fairness, this was before the introduction of Duke and other varieties. The berry does have this added element to it. It is nice sweet berry. There is something simply satisfying about eating a Berkeley. I have come more to the realization that there is just an Unami factor at play. You can’t put your finger on it, but it is there.
Berkeley is my suggestion for freezing. It is a berry that is great for putting in your oatmeal or making smoothies. Berkeley are also good for eating fresh.
Reka
Reka are what is referred to as a half-high and was bred in Canada. Basically, it is a cross between a high bush and a low bush blueberry. The reason was to increase its winter hardiness. Patriot is technically a half-high. While I think the berries are great, it can be difficult to convince customers to pick them due to their short stature. They are also short due to their young age. They are one of our younger blueberry varieties on the orchard.
The berries are medium in size and have a tangy and an iconic blueberry flavor. The plants are incredibly prolific. I wish some of our other varieties would produce the amount of berries that the Reka do.
Reka is a great choice for baking like muffins and pancakes. They are a good size for cooking, but Reka make a great jam as well.
Northland
Northland is another half-high. As such, they were planted in the “valley” to withstand the colder air flow in that area. The variety is very “bushy” and can be more cumbersome than the other varieties to pick.
With that said, Northland is the sweetest and has the most blueberry flavor of all our varieties. If you want that blueberry flavor, Northland is it. On a good year, the berries are medium in size. Honestly, Northland will be the smallest of our blueberries if we are being fully transparent.
Northland is the berry to pick if you want to impress with the blueberry flavor with the mostest. It is the baking berry.
Blue Crop
Blue Crop is another “Girl Next Door” berry. It is a perfectly fine berry, but it doesn’t necessarily have any outlining features. It is a mid-season berry and can be difficult to get customers to pick in that section as it is the sole variety during that time in the northern patch. The main section has a lot more varieties to choose from. When given a choice, most customers mosey over to the section with more choices for picking.
The Blue Crop is great for being prolific and reliable. During some years, there aren’t as many berries on the Patriot or Duke as we would like. The Blue Crop always has a ton of berries. All the berries are medium in size as the plant produces a multitude of berries of uniform size. Rarely is this variety picked out as it ripens during the mid season blueberry glut.
Blue Crop is enjoyed for fresh eating by many of its loyal followers. As a well rounded berry, it can be used for cooking and baking as well.
Chandler
Chandler is one of our newest additions. Planted in 2021, lets just say it has been a challenge. In part, it was bad management and poor decisions on my end. The variety was chosen as it was the newest and biggest berry available at the time. The size often surpasses that of the Patriot. Chandler was also planted as a mid season bridge between our summer berries and our fall variety the Elliot. In reality, it starts ripening slightly before our latest summer variety the Jersey. The variety also has the longest picking window of all the varieties. Some varieties pop, ripen and are done. Chandler’s berries ripen slowly or multiple weeks.
Besides its super size, Chandler has a unique flavor. My experience with the berry is limited as 2024 was the first year of its modest production. I would describe the flavor as hardy or “meaty”. Some varieties like Patriot are more one note. In comparison, the Chandler has greater depth of flavor even though I am failing to describe it accurately.
Large berries like Chandler are best suited to fresh eating and decorating cakes and tortes to highlight their impressive size for that big Wow factor. Also, its size makes it less appealing for baking, but could make a great jam or sauce.
Jersey
Jersey are the oldest blueberry bushes on the property clocking in at 35 plus years. They occupy rows 5,6,7, & 8 by the house/retail. If you are looking for a place to hide, the Jersey is a place to go as they are the tallest in the patch. The Jersey grow vigorously. This is in part due to their large root structure because of their age.
As a late summer variety, predicting when the Jersey ripen can be more variable depending on mother nature’s temperament that year. In general, the Jersey ripen mid to late August. Acquiring customers during that time of year can be challenging as we compete against state fair, last minute vacations and other activities before the school season starts.
The berries are bigger than the Northland and Reka, but not by much. The Jersey have a pleasant blueberry flavor and sweet. This berry can be cooked, baked and eaten as well.
The Bonus Blueberry
The Bonus Blueberry will only be mentioned briefly as it doesn’t really have a patch. It was also planted in 2023. Not going to lie, it wasn’t a great year to be planting blueberries in epic drought conditions. A lot of time and water was spent just trying to keep newly planted Bonus alive.
The Bonus were planted in various spots to fill in holes in the patch. Many places had holes where plants had died unexpectedly. Bonus were planted in those areas to fill in the gaps. It was also a way to test the robustness of the berry. Blueberry plants can be finicky. If blueberry plants aren’t happy, they just die. They don’t flounder; they just die. Not every plant likes every soil type. A plant that grows well somewhere else may not grow well at our orchard. The Bonus are therefore an experiment to see if planting a large patch would be worth it in the future.
The reason we are interested in the Bonus is it is the new “Biggest” berry on the market. While silly to say, this is America and those customers want big berries. Flavorwise, it is difficult to say as we have only tried a handful. It is also important to note that young fruit plants can produce fruit that can be off. This is especially true in apples. Young Honeycrisp trees can produce apples that just don’t quite have Honeycrisp flavor. As the trees mature, so does the flavor.
Elliot
Elliot are our tartest and latest ripening variety. Our loyal Elliot followers don’t seem to care. Elliot ripen around labor day. We may open the patch for a weekend if the Elliots ripen early. Once we open for apple season, the Elliot patch can be picked any day of the week. I will say that picking on Mondays and Tuesdays can be thin after a busy weekend. A customer will find better picking on a Friday or Saturday. Elliots have a long picking window. This allows us to pick the variety throughout the month of September and sometimes into October.
The Elliots do reside on a steep hill. People with weak knees should exercise caution. With that out of the way, it is gorgeous in the Elliot section. It is secluded. It is quiet. Customers find the picking relaxing. Our Elliot customer base is a much more casual crowd.
The size on Elliots can be quite variable. As with all blueberry varieties, the biggest berries ripen first. As the season progresses, the berry size gets smaller. Berries can hang for weeks and the big berries that are found later in the season were just ones missed or hard to get.
Elliots are good for eating, but cooking as well for those recipes requiring a decent amount of sugar.