Some part of the berry picking experience involves knowing which wild patch of land has berries this year and this week. Blueberries grow wild on the jack pine plains of Marquette County, tiny sweet berries that depend on good rain and good sun to ripen their best.
If you want to leave a little bit less to chance, or if you want strawberries or cranberries or blueberries in some quantity hard to get in the wild, here's some pointers to lists of berry farms in the Upper Peninsula.
Upper Peninsula Pick Your Own is a directory of "pick your own" farms in the UP; the rest of the site has listings worldwide. My favorite listing from there is for a place in Dollar Bay:
"Fresh blueberries" in Dollar Bay - Blueberries...and lots of them.
Upper Point Mills Road, in Dollar Bay, MI 49922. There's no phone or email, because it is an honor system pick-your-own at someone's house. A visitor wrote this: [...]
The farm opens for picking usually in late July or early August and runs until the crop dies. It's a fairly small farm located at someone's house, but not many people know of it, so there are always TONS of berries. You pick your own, and then weigh your berries on the scale that is there. You pay like a dollar per pound of berries. You have to bring your own dish to pick with. No one is there to supervise...its a do-it-yourself farm :) You can go at any time you like. The people who own the farm also have chickens and horses to look at.
The Michigan Department of Agriculture has a u-pick list too, but the coverage in the UP is very thin - they only list one place in Carney:
Jasper's Sugar Bush
Carney, MI -- Menominee County
REGION: 1
Phone: 800-646-2753
Email: jasper@dreamscp.com
Description:
We produce and retail a delicious variety of maple products including maple syrup, candy cream and sugar. Visit our farm or website. We ship anywhere.
Driving Directions:
7 miles E of US41; Carney on County Road 374
Hours of Operation:
Open all year.
It's still worth a look at the Michigan official one for its Michigan farmers market list - while it doesn't have every roadside truck full of corn, it does have dozens of regularly scheduled farm markets around the state (3 pages full).
