U-pick, I pick, we all pick

by Marisa McClellan, Posted Jun 20th 2008 @ 4:00PM

One of the things that says summer to me, more than hot weather, flip flops and the guys with coolers selling water bottles at stoplights and freeway exits is the ability to go fruit picking. I can't remember a single summer since I was 9 years old when I didn't find myself in a field of blueberry bushes, or carefully inserting myself further and further into a thorny blackberry bramble looking for the big, sweet berries.

The first few years I lived on the east coast, I planned a trip back to Portland that always happened to fall neatly during blueberry season (my mother's birthday coincides with ripe Pacific Northwest blueberries). Then last summer I headed to visit my parents in May and realized that if I didn't take matters into my own hands, I would miss out on picking. I started doing some research and found two farms that I absolutely love. This weekend, I'll be heading out to Mood's Farm Market near Mullica Hill, NJ to pick sweet cherries and early blueberries. I'm also planning a trip to Linvilla Orchards for raspberries in the very near future.

One of the things that helped me narrow down my u-pick choices was a guide that Metro Kids magazine (a Delaware Valley publication) put together last summer. They broke it down by state and so have a South Jersey guide, a Pennsylvania guide and a Delaware guide. When I'm in Portland, we always head out to Sauvie Island for all our u-pick needs.

I don't have much in the way of u-pick resources for the rest of the country, so I'm going to ask the rest of you to fill in the blanks. Where do you u-pick?

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Filed Under: Ingredients
Tags: blueberries, cherries, farm stands, FarmStands, fruit, orchards, raspberries, summer, u pick fruit, UPickFruit

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

6-23-2008 @9:13AM Joe said... Not sure how healthy it is, but my siblings and I used to go backpacking at the Delaware Water Gap, and one of our prime spots was a length of the Appalachian Trail that had an abundance of blueberries. They were never very big or quite ready when we got to them, but they were good, and no one ever got sick.
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6-20-2008 @7:05PM eugene said... check out this site: http://pickyourown.org/
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6-20-2008 @7:06PM eugene said... http://pickyourown.org/
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6-22-2008 @12:47AM Jason Levine said... Funny you should post about this. Last weekend, I brought my family strawberry picking for the first time. We wound up picking 6 1/2 POUNDS of berries. I made Strawnana Bread and Jam (most frozen).

Today we went back to the orchard with friends and picked 6 more pounds. The berries were beautiful. It was hard to decide where to pick because my eyes kept getting diverted to another patch of beautiful red berries.

Photos and recipes that I used can be found here (caution: LOTS of photos): http://www.pcqanda.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=4&topic_id=154371&mesg_id=154371&page=
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6-22-2008 @1:46AM jrt said... www.jonesfamilyfarm.com Shelton, CT

They have pick your own strawberries, blueberries, pumpkins and Christmas trees. I picked 11 lbs of strawberries for Father's Day and I'll go back again to get more to freeze for the winter.
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