Childs Blueberries (.com)       A Mountaintop Perfect for Blueberries!

Thanks for visiting our website. The 2008 crop looks great and we expect to be starting farmers markets about July 8 to  12th. U-pick will open the third Saturday in July. Hope to see you there!

A beautiful summer day. You can see the crew busy picking.

Tonya giving new pickers Nicole and Travis some pointers on two handed picking.

Jerry looking good. Hopefully he will pick some of the wild blueberries for market this year.

Jaime is one of our STAR pickers. She earned her shirt by picking 100 pounds of blueberries in one day. Pictured here she stayed late to pick 130 pounds in one day. Only 20 more to join her mother in the 150 pound club!

Mark and Chelsea put hardwood sawdust on the new blueberry plants after hand weeding the row. This field is 100% organic. We made an organic fertilizer but it costs 12 times more than the regular fertilizer we use. 

By Daniel and Carrie's house, you see the Humphrey Township truck. A big thank you to Dan, Glenn and Carl for dropping 20 loads of clean fill to help repair a leak in the irrigation pond. Small town helpfulness. On a side note, the pond (top right of picture) was built last summer to irrigate the new plantings. It is 35 feet deep and needed reinforcements to withstand the extreme pressure of those water depths. 

Bennie (running toward us) is a retired US Grand National Champ for Field Trained English Springer Spaniels. His handler was Ben Martin of Ohio. Running away from us is Blaze...Bennie's son. Blaze is 100% puppy...aka Blazeilla, Blazeyboy, Blazinator, etc. That fence is 8 feet high.

"Uncle Bob" set a great example by being the first person reporting to work before 7 a.m. and was still picking at 4!

We have a fleet of six golf carts that pickers use to ferry berries back to the sorting barn.

SEASON 2006--Spring

We have been blessed with a superb crew, year after year. Our friend, Mario says, "it is like a three legged stool--the customers, the crew and the berry fields--take any one leg away and the stool topples." Here are some pictures of "The Crew" at work over the years.

Mario has been pruning with Bob longest. He takes great pride in the "manicuring" of the fields.

Bob Childs, head honcho, out on a nice spring day in April taking a break from pruning.

Harry pruning on a warm April morning.

By the time all the pruning is done, the pile of cuttings is larger than a small barn each and every year. More and more studies are bearing out that pruning is one of the keys to the quality of the blueberries. The pictured bushes reached maturity after 13 years.

Tom Childs has been teamed with Harry this year for the pruning.

Chelsea Childs gave Grandpa a break for the day filling in for him partnering with Mario for the day. Notice behind her all the cuttings on the ground.

Carrie Childs with new pup, Blaze with the new planting of Draper blueberries and in the background, the blueberry fields. April 2006