Summer Delight — HillBerry Blueberries!

Karin, Willa, and Emmitt at the Brooktondale Farmers Market.

For Pat Hickey and Karin Dahlander of HillBerry, farming is a family affair. The couple owns an organic blueberry farm perched on a beautiful hillside in Berkshire, and their entire family is involved in making the farm a success. This year marks the fourth summer that fresh-picked HillBerry blueberries are available at GreenStar.

Pat and Karin chose to grow blueberries because they are well suited to the farm’s soil type and are less subject to pest and disease pressure than other fruits, making them ideal for organic growing. Their daughter Willa contributed the name, and HillBerry came to be.

Willa and her siblings Emmitt, August, and Winter are an integral part of the farm. The older kids help with picking and looking after the younger kids while their parents are at work. (“We have the cutest blueberry pickers,” Pat’s mother, Carol, who also helps on the farm, pointed out.) “This field is for the kids,” Karin said. “It’s something to come back to and be able to make an honest living at.”

The farm boasts over 15 varieties of blueberries, planted in rolling rows over two-and-a-half acres. The diversity ensures a range of flavor as well as a longer harvest period — berries ripen from mid-July through the beginning of September. The bushes are pond-irrigated when needed — in a rainy season like this one the bushes do just fine without additional water — and mulched with chips from a small, nearby lumber mill.

The farm is certified organic by Stellar Certification, and Pat and Karin share a deep commitment to organic growing practices. “We have some pests,” Pat said, “but we have enough to share. We’ve factored in losses. I don’t want to spray anything. Bugs serve a purpose, too.” Some birds do have a taste for blueberries, but Pat points that many birds eat insects as well, keeping the farm in ecological balance.

GreenStar customers can continue to enjoy HillBerry’s fruit long after the summer is over — the farm supplies frozen berries to the Co-op bakery for use in pies and other treats.