Click here for a slideshow virtual visit of Childs Blueberry Farm

Click here for a brief video link of the spring in the countryside.

Update May 21, 2009: The late frost did miss our field thanks to a SW wind all night. Look for a good season and markets to start the second week of July. See you then!

Childs Blueberries--A Mountaintop Perfect for Blueberries 

Named Wa Tera Swo  (Onondaga for "Land of Happy Dreams")

Childs Blueberry Farm (www.ChildsBlueberries.com)

A Mountaintop Perfect for Blueberries!

3172 Cooper Hill Road , Humphrey Township , New York 14743

Business: 716.557.2334; U-Pick: Website & 557.2529

UNIQUE FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE QUALITY OF CHILDS BLUEBERRIES   

This year we will use a new certified organic pesticide as a first line of defense if we catch a pest in one of the pheromone traps. So far for 2008, Childs Blueberries are PEST and PESTICIDE free. To me, one of the biggest problems with large mass production farms is their inability to micromanage the field and the use of machine harvesting. Berries are batted off the bush and then run through a water bath so the green berries sink to the bottom. The bath water collects residual pesticides as each berry is dropped in and passes through the water in the bath, which has no flushing system. Besides getting bruised when picked, I can't imagine being soaked in a pesticide bath just prior to being dropped into a plastic clamshell can be a good thing.

This year we added "fertigation" so that when we irrigate, we can put trace elements right in the irrigation water and this helps have a healthy blueberry field & crop. Our biggest off season task is properly pruning the field each year but we feel this helps keep the diseases out, berries sweet and berry size up. Over the last 24 years we have put enough sawdust, which keeps weeds out, retains moisture and adds to the flavor of the berries, on each bush to reach the top of a first floor building. A laboratory analysis of leaf samples allows us to formulate a custom blend fertilizer with ingredients the same as those listed on the back of a vitamin bottle. At Childs Blueberries we have said our berries are “NEAR ORGANIC". If they were organic, we could not give our bushes this fertilizer vitamin and we prefer Integrated Pest Management and have utilized these techniques since they were new. It seems at one end of the extreme is the mass production berries and at the other end is the organic. Using Integrated Pest Management taught by Rutgers University and Cornell University, we believe we can micromanage our field and product to achieve the best of both extremes.

A huge reason our blueberries are so sweet is because our soil is unique. Blueberries grow naturally on hilltops in places where many crops; such as, tomatoes, corn or beans would fail. Years back, we had a group of 8-10 (Indiana Jones type) geologists and archeologists out on a field adventure approach us and ask to scout around. They came rushing back hours into their adventure to excitedly tell us that the "glaciers stopped right over there" pointing just down the hill. That meant that our hill top at 2450 feet did not have the soil amalgamated by the glaciers and thus it retained the naturally acidic, unique components that are like heaven on earth to and soil, so do our blueberries grown on top of the highest hill in Humphrey, New York have unique flavors and micro-nutrients.

Wild blueberries were compared in one study against cultivated blueberries that were grown in sand and the study found that the wild blueberries grown in the soil of Maine, which resembles our unique soil in many respects, had more antioxidants. I feel the first study used cultivated berries grown in bland sand and that was not a fair test. Berries grown in sand rely on chemically adjusted soil to make it acidic and of course do not have the micronutrients that make blueberries so especially healthy & tasty. I would love to see our blueberries included in a follow-up study of “cultivated vs. wild”. On a side note, the majority of “wild" blueberries are now mass produced by a big conglomerate farm, just like most other berries, that uses herbicides, fungicides, pesticides and indiscriminate fertilization and still calls them "wild" . You can find those tiny bb size wild blueberries at road side stands so say some of our customers who travel to Maine for summer vacations or you can visit our u-pick where we have some rows of high bush wild blueberries. Personally, I prefer the big, sweet, cultivated blueberries we grow and sell at farm markets fresh or in the winter, frozen. All of these factors mentioned above and a few trade secrets or two not mentioned are why we take great pride in providing the best tasting, sweetest blueberries I have yet encountered.

Fruit which has systemic sprays applied cannot be eaten for 42 days (the mildest sprays can be eaten the same day) after application. The spray is absorbed by the leaves and enters the berry from the inside and stops the berry from molding. This is why, for example, a raspberry can have a shelf life of three weeks. Systemic sprays are used by large, mass production farms. Childs Blueberries does not use systemic sprays. Childs Blueberries gets no farm subsidies. Childs Blueberries pickers are local and are “on the books” paying into Social Security. 

Yours in Blueberries,

Systemic sprays like Quadris are applied 42 days before harvest by regulation. This means you cannot eat the fruit for 1 to 41 days after the spray is put on but on the 42 day  it is okay! The spray enters the berry from the inside out and stops the berry from molding. This is why, for example, a raspberry can have a shelf life of three weeks. Systemic sprays are used by large, mass production farms...the type where the "farmer" sits in a tractor all day. Childs Blueberries would not use systemic sprays.

Farm Subsidies:  The only farms, I know of, getting these subsidies are huge farms that are really conglomerates. I don't know of any small farms, which farm the way we do described above, getting any government subsidies. Childs Blueberries gets no subsidies.  

Pictured: One of 42 varieties of cultivated Childs Blueberries. Also available--One variety of "Wild" Cultivated Childs Blueberries 

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