County has a berry cornucopia

As children, we'd pile into our family car and head north from Minneapolis on Highway 65 for Cromwell to visit my grandfather. After 30 miles or so, leaving the suburbs behind, my father began to scout the roadsides. Braking firmly, to my mother and brothers' groans, he'd pull over, call for his roomy hat, and head for the roadside chokecherry tree. I chose to scramble after him.

That was my introduction to berry picking. As my mother later quipped, "you've been bit by the berry bug and you'll never recover!" Why would I want to?

For three weeks, I've been patronizing our area berry growers. The July 3 Pine Knot News spotlighted seven area farms, complete with addresses and phone numbers, courtesy of carltoncountyfruit.org and minnesotagrown.com/berries. I began calling around, and soon I was out the door two, three, maybe four times a week picking.

With my high school summer workers Brandi and Amber Collman, we started picking flavorful and juicy berries at Spectrum Farm Strawberries south of Carlton on County Road 4. They were so delightful that I returned the next morning for another round. Once home, they disappeared fast. Some crowning our dinner table, otherwise flush with greens from our garden. Some to 95-year-old Siiri Peterson, our home-confined mother. For years, she grew strawberries herself, but now is following strict Covid precautions. Some to Grandma June Collman.

Next we showed up at Farm LoLa, where we picked small, tart blueberries of two different varieties. They grow on low-to-the-ground young bushes where we didn't mind squatting to reach every berry.

I hoped to pick raspberries at Leaning Barn Farm in Esko, but I called too early and then too late. Another year. I once visited them with my son and his wife to learn how to grow shiitake mushrooms, which I love. Chris, the industrial arts teacher at Wrenshall, gave us a great demonstration. I can buy their mushrooms at Whole Foods Co-op in Duluth and do, almost every week.

A few days later, I joined an evening harvest at LoLa, this time for their vintage highbush raspberries. I enjoyed working from bottom to top and down again, filling my buckets with the lovelies.

Sunday morning, I landed an 8:30 time slot at Blackbirds & Blueberries, on Crosby Road northeast of Cloquet. It was mobbed, but the bushes are chin-high with large blueberries hanging like pendants in clumps at all levels. You are assigned a stretch so that you're not competing with other comers. I left with pailfuls, leaving plenty more for others. I returned there on Tuesday morning with Brandi Collman, and we picked maybe a 70-foot row of berries, working from either end. These bushes are vintage, planted years ago by the former owners and well-cultivated by the current owners.

I love picking berries of all kinds, maybe more even than the eating later. I enjoy the conversations of others, often three-generation families with small children. The kids are especially avid and expressive and funny. Unknowingly, they make up for my faraway grandkids with whom I have picked berries other summers. But deterred by Covid precautions, not this year.

If you're a berry lover and willing to be adventuresome, check out the carltoncountyfruit.org website. You'll be able to find some farms still offering picking opportunities. You can usually call ahead and ensure both the berries and an opportunity to pick. In my book, the best fruit offerings I've ever known, concentrated in one expansive county.

Ann Markusen is an economist and professor emerita at University of Minnesota. A Pine Knot board member, she lives in Red Clover Township north of Cromwell with her husband, Rod Walli.