The Blueberry Farm gives locals option to 'pick your own'

photo Haile Wright and her grandparents, The Blueberry Farm owners Simone and Joe Kilpatrick, look forward to welcoming patrons to their farm in LaFayette starting July 1 to pick blueberries this season.

Families pick their own blueberries from the rows in three fields of blueberry bushes in LaFayette.

Children play on the playground or swing with their parents while enjoying a day on the farm.

Sometimes The Blueberry Farm is like a festival, with 50 cars parked in the yard. Since the farm holds a drinking fountain, swings and a portable toilet, some families spend the day there and spread out a picnic on a blanket.

Beginning in the 1970s, the Smith family opened The Blueberry Farm to the community. Since 1997, the Kilpatrick family has maintained the 22-acre farm that holds 6 acres of blueberry bushes and 1 acre of muscadine bushes.

"Some of the blueberry bushes are original to the farm," said Joe Kilpatrick, who owns the farm with his wife Simone. "The farm has about 1,000 blueberry bushes. The big field down by the road is where customers go and we have a south field with early varieties and a home field in the front for families to pick from."

Blueberries can be handpicked on the farm from early July through mid-August this season. Patrons can pick muscadines from late August through late September.

Patrons pay for their harvest through an honor system bank on a pole next to the Blueberry Hut. The cost for blueberries is $8 per gallon or $4 for a half gallon, and gallon-sized buckets wait at the ready to be filled, though customers should bring something to take their blueberries home in.

Joe Kilpatrick said "eating a cup full of blueberries freshly picked in cereal tastes the best." The Kilpatricks also like to use the berries to make blueberry cobbler, jam and pie.

The blueberries they grow are Rabbiteye Blueberries, said Joe Kilpatrick. The farm grows a half dozen varieties. The Kilpatricks said they keep the bushes healthy by refraining from using sprays and mainly letting nature handle watering the bushes.

"One lady picked 90 gallons of blueberries for her daughter one summer," said Simone Kilpatrick. "Her daughter had cancer and blueberries are good for you. Last I checked, her daughter was doing much better."

The Blueberry Farm is at 1363 Highway 151 and can be reached by dialing 706-638-0908 or visiting facebook.com/pages/The-Blueberry-Farm/116591945684. The farm is open from sunup to sundown every day of the week except Wednesday.

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