Fun at the Farmer’s Market

We had a great time at the Winter Farmer’s market held at Wentworth Greenhouses in Rollinsford.  This is a picture of Michael and his favorite mother-in-law prior to the opening.  Seacoast Eat Local and Wentworth Greenhouse have another farmer’s market scheduled for Saturday, December 5 http://www.seacoasteatlocal.org/winterfarmersmarkets/ .  We won’t be participating as we sold most of our frozen blueberries at the last market but there were many many great farms and vendors who will be returning.

For the past few weeks we have been busy pruning the blueberry bushes in our third field.  Most growers recommend that blueberry bushes can be pruned starting in March and continuing up to blossom time.  However, because of the number of bushes we need to prune and because of advice from other growers, we have started pruning in November and will continue until it gets too cold (for us and the bushes!)  We resume pruning in March and April which usually allows us the needed time to prune all 6000 plants.  Stay tuned for a pruning workshop which will be held at the farm sometime in March in conjunction with UNH Cooperative Extension.

Last Hurrah!

The blueberry season is officially over at Berrybogg Farm and overall the season was a success.  Definitely too much rain in July but August was much better and of course the berries seemed to do very well with all the rain.   Don’t forget that we will be selling blueberry plants in May so give us a call at 603-664-2100 before Mother’s Day and check our website for specific times and dates for blueberry plants.

We will leave you with a few pictures of the end of summer picking.

Ringing the bell for the last customer to come out of the fields!  Below are  some of the last customers checking out!

Rain Rain Go Away

After many days of rain the sun has suddenly appeared again.  The blueberries have weathered the rain quite well but are still very green.  Hopefully with some warm and sunny weather we will be on schedule to open around July 11 or 12.

Ben and Chris have started their summer jobs with us but unfortunately have had a lot of rain delays.  On Thursday, we kept them busy mowing lots and lots of green grass in the fields. 

As you can see, they are a bit camera shy.

Despite the bad weather, we have been very busy on the farm and look forward to seeing old and new customers in a couple of weeks.  Stay tuned to the blog and website for the opening day date!

First In, Last Out!

All good things must come to an end and today was our last day of picking at Berrybogg Farm.  Pictured above is my mom escorting Billy out to the parking lot with his final stash of blueberries.  Bill was the first customer in on July 11th and almost the last out today.  There should be some kind of award for that! 

Yesterday our good friend Susan came by to get her last berry picking done.  As you can see from the above picture she also brought us a gift of fresh veggies from her garden.  At least some gardens were able to weather all the rain last month.

Finally, we have had many great new and old customers visit us this year and we thank everyone for their patronage.  Pictured above is our new friend Nicole who came all the way from Manhattan with her two cute little dogs to pick blueberries…well…she actually came to visit with my sister and was forced to pick blueberries to have pancakes last weekend but we voted her the best dressed picker in the blueberry fields this year! 

The growing season is not complete for a lot of farms so remember to visit the farmer’s markets and farms still offering fresh produce in your local area.  I will continue to update the blog as we go about working on the farm in preparation for the next season but for now…I’m going on vacation!

Nearing the End

Last Friday we had this fun group of people come to pick blueberries and blackberries for their Saturday wedding.   Who knew getting married could be so much fun!  They managed to crawl through the blackberry patch and snag the best fruit of the season and picked a lot of blueberries too.  The bride and groom told me they were going to combine their fruit with fresh fruit from Warren’s Farm (where they were getting married) to make the wedding dessert.  Sounds like a perfect wedding!

I can’t believe we are almost ready to call it a season at Berrybogg.  We had a lot of people out this weekend picking the last of the Berkeleys and Jerseys so we decided to close the farm until Thursday when we will make a last run at the Late Blues which are looking big and beautiful.  Unfortunately, with all the rain from the previous weeks we have been suffering the wrath of mosquitoes so make sure you wear bug spray when you come to pick.  Early mornings and late afternoon seems to be the worst but the weather forecast is for bright and clear skies without a lot of humidity so hopefully that will minimize their numbers.

Summer Makes a Return

We have finally dried out after all the rain from the previous two weeks and the forecast for this week is for nice weather.  In the picture above, my son and Ben are busy filling in one of our many mini lakes that appeared after the rain with gravel.  Prior to this picture both boys were busy counting how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop so they were quickly sentenced to hard labor!

This has been a busy year for our new/used golf cart.  In this picture our friend Stacy and her son are about to enjoy a ride to the parking lot after some blueberry picking.  The distance between our parking lot and the blueberry fields is not large but it can be a little too much for some folks so we use the golf cart to shuttle pickers back and forth.   If you come to visit at the farm and think you need a ride up to the fields, just give two beeps with your car horn and we’ll be right there to pick you up.

This is our new friend Virginia who we learned has a great blog of her own to visit called livinglocalnh.blogspot.com .  On this particular day, Virginia picked around 10 pounds of blueberries! I had the chance to visit her blog and found a yummy recipe for blueberry crumb bars with a great picture sure to make you salivate.  Make sure to check out her blog for great resources on buying local food and the fun she has accomplishing this.

These three children came to pick last week and politely posed for my picture on the adirondack chairs.  They had a great time at the farm and as you can see from the picture happened to pick a sunny day to visit!

I finally want to update everyone with the status of the stolen items that disappeared last week.  Everything was returned to us, including the flag, so we are thankful they made their way back to the farm!

It Did Not Rain Today!

We actually went a whole day without rain today.  In fact, the sun was so bright when we took this picture of my husband floating around the pond that his white shirt caused quite a reflection.   We had so much rain the day before (I believe it was close to 6 inches of rain) that the rock which is above the bow of the boat was submerged.  It usually is about 12 inches out of the water and the large snapping turtles use it to sun themselves. 

My husband Michael wins the award for hardest worker this summer.  Not only does he work every weekend at the farm but then he drives to Massachusetts on Monday to work at his “real” job all week.  Last night he went up to the farm and actually dragged the sump pump up to the field to drain one of the massive puddles we had in one of the paths.  He also did a few loads of gravel with the tractor and in the above picture he was fishing trash out of the pond.

Unfortunately, my husband wasn’t the only one in the blueberry field last night.  We had vandals break in to our screen house and take a lot of the food jars we have for sale.  They took our bright yellow water cooler and threw some beer bottles around.  Actually, not so bad until we noticed that they had stolen our American flag from the large flag pole in front of the stand.  That flag was given to us when my dad passed away to honor his service in the Navy.  We can always get another flag but that was just mean.  Here’s hoping all that honey and salsa they stole gives them really bad indigestion!

Fabulous Picking

What a surprise! It’s raining today so I have time to post to our blog.  Hopefully tomorrow will yield better weather because the picking is wonderful in all three blueberry fields.  Yesterday ended up turning into a great day for picking because the weather was cloudy and cool and I’m sure many people decided not to go to the beach and ended up getting some blueberries.  That was the case for my sister-in-law and niece who were supposed to be having a relaxing day at the pool but came to pick instead.  The photos of them were taken in our third field which has a bumper crop of Berkeley blueberries. 

      

Many thanks to our summer neigbor Susan who thought she was coming across the street to chat and pick berries but instead was pressed into service behind the booth.   It had been pretty slow all morning until Susan showed up with all the customers so we have her to thank for the burst in business.  Now if we can just get her to visit during the pruning season…

  This little picker is showing everyone how to pick just the right berries.  She came earlier in the season and her father gave my mom this photo.  Hopefully she’ll be picking blueberries for many years to come. 

I wanted to remind everyone that this week is Eat Local Week in New Hampshire.  Celebrate all the local food grown and produced in New Hampshire by visiting a local farmer’s market or farm.  Challenge yourself to a meal or two of New Hampshire grown foods.  For more news about events and news, visit www.nheatlocalweek.org .

Great Customers

We are so lucky to have the best customers.  Some people tell us they’ve been coming to pick blueberries at our farm since my parents opened it over 30 years ago.  We have many families come with their grown children and tell us they brought them as babies to the farm.  The above picture shows three of our favorite customers who come every Tuesday to pick.  The couple on the right are 90 years old and they bring their friend who is 87.  They love to pick berries and we have a lot of fun with them when they come to pick.

Our third field of blueberries has a great mid-season variety called Berkeley which continues to produce lots of blueberries.  The above picture is just some of the hundreds of pounds that some of our customers picked from the third field.  Unfortunately, the land in the third field does not drain as well as we would like and our customers were standing in water picking these but they didn’t seem to mind.  We do not need any more rain!

These three lovely ladies came to pick Saturday afternoon.  I made them pose in front of the sign and they were nice enough to oblige. They are friends with my daughter and graduated from high school last year and we love that they like blueberries.  Hopefully, we’ll get them hooked on the big blues and they’ll come back to pick each year!

Happy Pickers

We had a tremendous amount of people come out to pick this past weekend.  I think everyone was shocked to see the sun and wanted to get outside after the past week’s rain and storms.  The above picture was a fun group of people who came on Saturday afternoon and did their best to pick a lot of berries and scare the birds away too! 

The birds have always been a problem at the farm.  My father and mother tried many things over the years to rid the fields of birds to no avail.  We had fake owls placed on poles throughout the field, a noise maker which made a sound resembling a bird in distress, streamers hung on poles which would flash in the wind and all of it would work for a small amount of time but the birds always figured it out.  So my parents finally gave up and yes, we do get a lot of damaged fruit from bird pecks but we seem to have enough good fruit to satisfy our customers.