Honeycrisp Trees are in the ground!

Small Updates First:    We will be having We-Pick/U-Pick Blueberries this Saturday, 9am-4pm but Saturday may be the last day.  Possibly next Thursday thru Saturday we may be open depending on how the fruit looks.  But after that we say good-bye to blueberries for another year.

But the good news is that U-Pick apples are right around the corner.  We keep checking our Gravensteins.  Still a bit too green but will keep checking and I will post on here when they are ready.

Farm Happenings:

Skid steer with auger = good!  Shovel = No good!

I am so thankful for advances in technology.   Using the auger to dig the tree holes was great.  We even had a smaller one for the post holes.  Of course, I AM thankful for shovels too because they do fill the holes in.

We strung a line to keep the row straight, then started planting.

If you look closely, you can see the tree is grafted.  I think I talked about this in a previous post a bit but a little recap.  It is impossible to get Honeycrisp trees right now ordered in so we took some cuttings and grafted them onto  Golden Delicious trees.  Eventually we will cut the Golden Delicious tree off as the Honeycrisp graft takes off. (And actually ALL apple trees are grafted....the bottom rootstock decides how big the tree will grow, and the top graft decides what kind of fruit the tree will bear.)

And there they be!  All planted and ready to grow.

Next things to check off are to get some sprinkler heads attached to the underground irrigation and plant some grass rows.  Oh and of course continue putting the posts up (working on that now) and stringing some wire to help train the trees to grow straight.

And something just for fun.....

We are hoping this keeps the birds from stealing our blueberries.

Burma Shave style  :)

Hope you are all are surviving the heat!  I'm sure some of you LOVE it!  And others, like me, are just trying to survive it :)

We have U-PICK/WE-PICK Blueberries starting Thurs, July 17th!

We want to open our blueberry field up for you to enjoy!

7 Acres loaded with berries.

Bluecrop variety is nice and sweet.  Our favorite variety to eat!

Open 9am - 4pm Thursdays thru Saturdays.

Starting July 17th thru mid August.

U-Pick     $1.20/ lb

We-Pick $ 2.00/lb (To order email us at BeilkeFF@gmail.com, or call 503-393-1077 (leaving a message) one day ahead and we can have them ready for pick up the next day between Thursday and Saturdays.. (Pick up at field location)

You can find us just a few blocks east of our U-Pick apple location.

The address is 5371 Brooklake Rd, Downtown Brooks OR 97305.

Directions:

From I-5, Take exit 263 (Brooks).  Turn to the East off the exit ramp.  Continue east through the only traffic light in Brooks.  After several houses, our field is on the left.  The field is hard to miss because it is covered with tall netting.  Turn in the driveway BEFORE the netting, not after.

If you get lost but are familiar with our U-Pick apple location, come there and we can help you.

Field rules:

For food safety reasons, all who enter MUST wash their hands.

No animals please.

We have containers to pick into, but bring your own to take the berries home.

Can't wait to see you!

Blueberry harvest begins.

It's blueberry time around here.  My son is enjoying the abundance :)  He says, "Mmm these are good."

Our blueberries are packed into clam shells and shipped all over the West Coast and Japan.  We grow 3 different varieties that are early, mid and late season ripening so we are busy from late June to mid August.  Some fields we have to pick two times and some with 4 pickings because each variety ripens differently.  Between each picking, we have to wait about 13 days.  Some fields we pick by hand and some by machine.  Keeps us on our toes.  Our oldest field we planted in 1995 and our latest in 2012.

This could be a whole another post (which it might be!), but we take lots of efforts to deter the birds from eating our blueberries!  When you work all year keeping the berries maintained and growing healthy, and the birds take the berries right when they are ready to harvest, it is painful to watch!!!  One deterrent is putting net over 12 of our 35 acres of berries.  The picture below is of us putting a net over 12 acres of our blueberries.  The net stays up year round, except we unroll the different sections in the spring.  It usually takes 2 weeks to put it up and 1 week to take it down.

We have also finished up thinning our apples.

Now we are working on putting in 3 new rows of Honeycrisp.  That includes getting the ground worked up and smooth, a soil test to see if the soil needs amended.  Plus rows spaced and staked, trenching for the irrigation pipe, ordering and installation of the underground irrigation, digging of post and tree holes, and finally planting of the trees! And even with all that, I am sure I am forgetting something!

Next week we are hoping to start planting the apple trees depending on the weather and how busy we are with blueberries.

On another subject, it has been rainy around here.  We were checking on our wheat and plenty has laid down.  It will make it harder to harvest because the wheat header has a harder time cutting it when it is down, but we'll make it.

Sometimes it feels like nothing can be easy around here :)  This is the hose reel that waters our corn and it got stuck pretty bad!  We got it out though with 3 chains end to end and a big tractor.  The picture below is the sprinkler on the end of the big coiled up black hose on the hose reel.

You hook the sprinkler to the back of a small tractor and pull it out how far you want it in the field.  Once it is all set up, you start the hose reel and it slowly pulls the sprinkler cart in depending on the amount of water you want to put on the field.

Other crops we are growing are, radish seed (white flowers) and dwarf chinese cabbage (yellow flowers).  After bloom then we let them dry up before they are harvested.

Well I am off to go pick up a truckload of blueberry crates.  Have a great rest of the day!