blueberry picking, take 2

A recent visit from my mother-in-law reminded just how much I miss picking blueberries up in New Jersey.  She was telling me about how she and my sister-in-law had picked 30 (or was it 50?) pounds of berries for around $1.25 or so a pound and as I sat there listening I wondered how many pounds we'd need to pick to make the drive worthwhile.  (it's only 650 miles after all)

New Jersey is one of the largest blueberry producing states and the Pine Barrens region of the state is perfect for growing the tasty blues.  It's not hard to find berries for around $1/pound for conventional and $2/pound for organic (which we'd prefer, especially seeing as how commercial conventional blueberries have now landed on the "dirty dozen" list and we have a little person who LOVES her some berries something fierce).  Of course we have several farms around here, but picking can be quite hit or miss depending on how many folks have been out and the prices, for the most part, are around $3.50 to $4 a pound.  Not that that's terrible.  But you see, I had dreams of LOTS of berries.  LOTS of jam, LOTS of frozen berries for future pancakes and muffins.  And I was hoping to fulfill that dream without LOTS of money being spent.

Enter this:

Located in Old Fort, NC.  A sweet older couple has many (close to 100? maybe a couple hundred?) mature blueberry bushes planted on the hillside in front of their house and the above sign tells you what you need to know.  Unsure of what the answer would be, I asked the friendly man if he sprayed his berries much and he told me that he never, ever sprays anything on them.  Perfect.  I don't care about spots on my apples, leave me the birds and the bees.  Such wise words.

Mike and I had actually picked here years ago and somehow had forgotten all about it.  Until I was recently doing lots of thinking about blueberries and then (because that's how it goes, right?) bumped into the woman who told me about the place years ago and got the directions and info from her again.  I am not going to forget about this place again, I assure you.  And the icing on the cake?  He expects to be open for picking for the next 6 weeks.  Now that's a lot of berries.

Mike did the math and figured that we ended up paying somewhere in the ballpark of $0.75 per pound.  Sweet.  Got berries?

We do.  About 3 gallons so far.  I think there's more to come.