Red, white, & blueberry beginning to season
The opening day of any season is an exciting one.
Baseball fans flock to ballparks, anglers rush to their favorite fishing holes and hunters invade the woods.
On a small farm along McCalmont Road in Renfrew, opening day for blueberry picking season — the first Saturday in July — fell on Independence Day this year.
“It was a little crazy. Luckily, we have a lot of parking,” said Lisa Bowser of Bowser's Blueberries, where people come to pick blueberries off 5,700 bushes spread over five acres that she tends with her husband, Ric, and daughters, Lexi and Shannon.
About 450 people came to the farm on opening day and hand-picked 1,130 pounds of sweet blueberries that they bought and took home.
The farm opens at 8 a.m. Twenty-eight cars were in the parking area by 7:45 a.m., she said.
Some families spent the day, and one group of pickers brought wine and cheese to liven up the experience.
“It was busy,” Lisa Bowser said. “We had to close at 2 p.m. We sold out.”
The Bowsers have 10 varieties of blueberry bushes that produce fruit at different times to have fresh pickings available throughout the summer. All of the varieties are sweet, but have slightly different tastes and some customers prefer certain types, she said.
The family planted their first 2,500 plants in 2011 and gradually added more before opening the farm to pickers in 2014.
Early season berries are ripe now and ready to be picked, but the recent lack of rain has caused the Bowsers to close the farm for several days. Blueberries need rain to become plump, she said.
Mid-season berries will be ready in a few weeks, and the late-season crop is ready sometime in August.
A lot of work goes into the operation.
When the buds on the plants open up and turn into flowers in early May, the Bowsers bring in 16 hives of bumblebees and four hives of honeybees for pollination. The hives, which are placed throughout the berry patch, also attract other bumblebees.
“We've seen an increase in native bumblebees,” Bowser said.
This is the first year the honeybees produced enough honey — 240 pounds — for the Bowers to sell. The honey has a slight blueberry taste from blueberry flowers the bees pollinate.“After pollination, we cross our fingers the frost doesn't kill them,” Bowser said.The Bowsers were “very fortunate” to lose only about 5 percent of their crop due to a few cold nights this spring, she said.It takes about six weeks after pollination for the berries to grow big enough for picking.The bushes are planted in 60 rows measuring 400 feet long. People pick berries from the rows of grass that grow between the rows of berries.Mulch is placed around the plants, and they mow the grass. An underground irrigation system waters the plants. The field is fertilized in the spring and fall, but no pesticides are sprayed on the plants.“We don't spray any kind of chemical on them at all. We don't want to spray anything on them. We have a lot of kids crawling around in the field. The trade-off is the occasional Japanese beetle,” Bowser said.The Bowsers give people buckets with bags inside to carry the berries they pick. The bags are weighed before they leave, and berries are sold by the pound. Berries eaten while picking are not counted.“That's something that people like. You can sample all you like. We won't weigh you when you come in; we won't weigh you when you go out,” she said.In the offseason from November to April, Lisa and Ric prune 2,000 to 3,000 plants. They remove mostly older branches and leave three or four young branches.The payoff comes in the spring and summer.“We've picked berries there the last four years,” said Brad Orton, of Renfrew.Because of Orton's work schedule, the Bowsers let him and his wife, Karen, come the day before opening day, but the Ortons make two or three other trips to the farm during the summer. Picking the day before opening day allows them to select the largest “nugget berries,” he said.
They eat a few while picking but take most home and use them in pies, cakes and pancakes in addition to eating them plain.Mounted on a pole at the farm is a large basket with the center cut out, so children put their heads into them for photographs, he said.“It's nice to see families come there with their kids. It's nice to see the kids outside enjoying something,” Orton said.Andrea Mueller, of Chicora, hasn't visited the farm yet this year, but she and her family are planning a trip.They picked 60 pounds last year, she said, and have been visiting the farm for the past four years.“We're praying for rain, because we need those berries,” she said.She goes with her husband, Kurt, and their 2-year-old daughter, Annie. Andrea relies on a wheelchair for mobility due to injuries she suffered in an ATV accident, and she said the rows of grass between the berries allow her to reach the plants.The Muellers put the berries in yogurt and pies and freeze some of them.“We just like eating them by the handfuls too,” Mueller said.She said her family buys as much organic food as possible, and they like the fact that the Bowsers don't spray their plants.Blueberry pie is Lisa Bowser's specialty, and she has her recipe posted on the farm's website along with other recipes submitted by customers.Like other business, the farm has had to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing and mask wearing is practiced in the tent where pickers pay for their berries. A clear panel separates customers from the cashier. The buckets are sterilized between uses. “Everybody cooperated. It went really well,” Bowser said.
<br />
