Miscellaneous

 

Cultivated "Wild" High Bush blueberries. These berries pictured here in early July are now full ripe and delicious!

Red raspberries.

 

Black Currants

Red Currants. Watch for Currant Jelly...a real delight!

The sign says Childs Play but farming is no picnic! In the distance, one sees the hills of Pennsylvania.

Blaze running down the manicured fields with big, sweet, wonderful blueberries.

Close up of the berries in the picture above.

And closer yet.

The new bee hives protective fencing. Each of the panels is electrified and on the ground is metal roofing so if the bear touches the fence, he/she is well grounded for maximum shock!  We have had the hives destroyed twice in the last five years by bears that were captured from Allegany State Park and released in the hills by us. Bears kept destroying our bee hives which are essential for proper pollination. Penn State College has (hopefully) perfected a plan for keeping the bees safe from bears using electric fence panels, metal roofing on the ground and a solar powered electrical zapper. When the bear approaches the hives, it steps on the metal roofing and then touches the fence. Because of the grounding, it gets a "good" zap and leaves the bees alone...at least in theory. The next time a bear wanders through we will see.

 

Manicured rows of pesticide free raspberries in the spring become a "catch crop" in the middle of the season for Japanese Beetles. The beetles prefer the raspberries to most anything else and so we spray Sevin pesticide (no harvesting for 7 days after application--which is no problem since there are no berries on the bushes at the time of application) on them and kill the beetles before most get to the blueberries. Once the blossoms start to form for the fall raspberry crop, the beetles have mostly gone and we stop the spraying because we would also kill the friendly honey bees pollinating the blossoms. The fall crop of raspberries then have no direct application of pesticide on the fruit. Catch Crops--another trick used to keep pesticides out of the blueberries! 

Weymouth is a delicious berry again abandoned by big farms but we think they are worth the extra trouble. These are first generation derivatives of the wild varieties used for genetic experimentation.

Dukes are a fabulous early berry. We took a chance and got some back in 91 through a trial program before they became available to most other growers. I liked the name...Duke...reminds me of John Wayne--big, sweet and lovable! 

 

See you at market or on the farm soon!

Daniel, Carrie, Audrey and Bob Childs

We pruned out a pile of blueberry cuttings the size of a small house.

The fields have been fertilized, weeded, mowed, mulched & the irrigation is repaired and ready for service. When we start at row one, by the time we go up and down each row and finish up at the last row of the field, we have traveled 2 miles.

The 8' fence kept the deer out this winter. Recall several years ago herds of deer were eating 6 pounds of blueberry buds each per night. This is like eating 15-30 pints per deer per night. It was recommended we shoot them,  put dogs out in the field using underground wire restraints or put this huge fence around the whole field. We opted for the fence.