Springbank Farm - Lebanon

When my parents so graciously brought Scott back from Medford, I took advantage of their trip and knees by having them come out with me to pick blueberries. Both of my parents are expert berry pickers, harvesting berries from coast to coast. We decided to try a new berry picking spot this year and went to Springbank Farm in Lebanon, Oregon.

The farm is family-owned and employs local teens to help with the picking and sorting of the many varieties of blueberries on their farm. Something I noticed that was interesting about the farm was that they didn't have any nets covering their blueberries, even though I'm sure there are many birds. Instead, they have a speaker system throughout the 12-acres of blueberries that periodically plays a tune of raptor bird songs, I'm assuming to keep the berries on the bush.

When we arrived at the farm there was a sign showing which varieties and rows were available for u-pick that day. My husband turned to me and said, "Did you call ahead to let them know we were coming?"

There must have been an influencial Chandler in the agriculture industry because there are chandler varieties of so many fruits: chandler strawberries, chandler walnuts, chandler pomelos, and chandler blueberries.

We chose to pick in a lane that had Legacy blueberries on one side and Chandler blueberries on the other. After eating and picking and eating and picking, I'm not sure that I can say with certainty what the difference between the two varieties is, but I can say that I very much enjoyed the Chandler blueberries. My mom even said she "really liked the Chandlers." We obviously took that as a compliment.

U-pick at Springbank Farm was $1.75/lb this summer (or at least on the day we picked). There were so many blueberries to pick and many of the blueberries were very large. I prefer picking small to medium size berries as they are  sweet, tart, and almost candy-like. With my parents help, and even with their cut of the berries, we were able to fill our freezer with bags and bags of fresh blueberries for pancakes, and blueberry compote, and muffins all winter long!

Many, many thanks for your manual labor coming, Mom and Dad!