When the Berries Will Be Ready
The harvest usually starts right after Fourth of July (with raspberries) and ends with the first hard frost of the Fall--late September or early October.
We open the farm July Fourth weekend and remain open until Columbus Day (closed every Wednesday). We sell jam,
maple syrup, books, & coffee, even if it is before or after the harvest/picking season. We are a PYO farm but
usually have pre-picked berries available in our farm store.
Picnics and pleasant walks around the farm are welcome. However, dogs are not permitted in the orchard please, even on a leash.
Please call us at 802-767-3989 during the season for up-to-date picking conditions. We will leave a fresh recorded message every day during the season.
Ripening will vary from year to year depending on the weather. The dates that berries are usually ripe are:
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July 8 or so
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Raspberries ripen first.
We have 3 acres of raspberries, in four varieties:
Reveille (yes they come up first!);
Kilarney;
Nova;
Taylor. Taylors swell up last, around the last week of July and go a week or so into August -- If you are a die-hard raspberry fan and willing to search, you may continue to find some raspberries (mostly Nova and Taylor) into late August, it just requires a bit more patience.
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July 15
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Blueberries arrived early in 2010. We have almost 3,000 bushes, in four varieties:
We will have Patriots first,
quickly followed by Blue Crop & Blue Ray varieties,
and finally our Jersey blueberries ripen around mid-August and last until late-September or longer.
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about September 8.
about July 15
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Blackberries start around the second week of September.
Our acre of the "Illini Hardy" variety produces a Fall crop, usually well after the warmest and wettest days of the summer have passed. (The summer crop comes from the previous year's canes may produce fruit this July for the first time). They also ripen gradually and play "chicken" with September's cool nights. But if we don't get a hard frost, they can go well into October.
Sour Cherries. We have 30 sour cherry trees. We got a crop for the first time in 2009 but 2010 is a bust as frost took out the crop this year.
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