GREAT SEASON HEADED OUR WAY!
Blackberries Begin June 5
But the bad news first! We will have some blackberries but they will be in short supply. Why? Viruses are taking out our plantings and we have replanted with virus free thornless varieties both last year and this winter. Deer love blackberries, especially the thornless types and we have suffered a lot of deer damage.
We will be open every other day the first week, to allow more to ripen between harvest days.
Thursday June 5 - 8am to 6pm
Saturday June 7 - 8am to 6pm
Monday June 9 - 8am to 6pm
Blueberries Forecast June 11
It looks like a bumper crop this year! With all the rain so far this May they are growing rapidly, have lots of leaves and the berries are already weighing the branches down, so they should be very sweet. We frost protected with the Wind Machine in February when the temperature went to 16 degrees in Six Mile. The threshold for flower bud damage was 21 degrees and we never went below 23 degrees. We have 100 percent of crop. With all the cool weather they may be delayed, but we are currently forecasting to begin harvest June 11.
We will be open every day, regular summer hours, beginning June 11.
Monday through Friday: 8am to 8pm
Saturdays: 8am to 6pm
Sundays: Noon to 8pm
Figs
The fig trees recovered in 2024 after a hard freeze killed many branches in the early spring 2024. They were all pruned to get all the dead wood out of trees. They are growing very well with the rain this spring.
There are a few Breba figs on some trees. These are figs born on last year’s wood. And they will be early, maybe by June 15.
The summer figs are beginning to show. The summer figs we are predicting to start harvest in mid late July and with all the new growth we are predicting a bumper crop this year.
Sunberries
These are the new seedless muscadines. We have 5 varieties now… Razzmatazz, Oh My, Oh Gosh*, Oh Goodness* and Oh Fine*. (*The latter three names are not official.) They are flowering now. So we will have some this year. They are not like the table grapes you get in store which, to me, are just bags of sugar water. The Sunberries have great flavor and are resistant to disease so we can grow them without spraying fungicides and insecticides. The Arkansas seedless grapes are gone. We lost them due to disease.
Muscadines
Muscadines are also in flower now. Last year we got behind in pruning them and that reduced the vigor of the vines. This year we got them done in time and they are looking great. We are looking at a great crop.
Kaki Persimmons
They are looking great and are loaded with flowers. These will self-thin themselves as the season progress. That is normal. It looks like our program managing the vectors of persimmon sudden wilt is working. We will have a good supply of these orange, apple sized, sweet seedless fruit this year.
All the above is dependent on the weather. Let’s hope we don’t get another 10-week drought this summer!
Summer Positions Available
We are looking for 2 summer employees.
Hope to see you on the farm!
Walker Miller and The Happy Berry Bunch
Happy Berry to host a “Ring of Fire” demonstration.
After conserving the farm in 2024, we used some of those grant funds and purchased a “Ring of Fire” Kiln from Daniel Hettinger (828 587 0390). We are excited to begin converting our waste stream to charcoal and reapply it to the land. Doing this will take our sequestered carbon from 10% organic matter to who knows what the top limit is! It will also increase the fertility of our soils - Charcoal adds cation and anion exchange, increases water holding capacity and water infiltration rate, and adds housing for microorganisms.
We invite all our customers (and bring your friends too!)
to learn about Biochar
and see the Ring of Fire kiln in action
at The Happy Berry on May 20, 2025
10 AM until approximately 3 PM.
Participants can feel free to attend part or all of the program.
10 AM - Starting the “Ring of Fire” kiln (big bonfire) that will go about an hour until it settles into a bed of coals at about 11:00. At 11, I (Walker Miller) will introduce Daniel Hettinger. Daniel will give a presentation on the Ring of Fire kiln which will be about 45 minutes to an hour. As Daniel explains, you will be able to see the kiln in action. We will continue feeding the Kiln from 11 until 2, then begin the quenching process and making access to the charcoal. We hope to be done by 3 PM.
While you are on the farm, you can also view research plots where char treatments were set up several years ago by Dr. Juan Melgar.
The purpose of using the kiln, and this demonstration, is about renewing our fertile soils of the southeast to what they were 500 years ago. As most of you know, we are passionate about our pursuit of sustainability and sequestering carbon. There are differing perspectives on how to do that, as outlined in Charles Mann's book The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World. As Mann sets forth, there is a conflict between Prophets and Wizards. * The prophets believe humanity must stay within ecological limits of our planet as demonstrated by science. The wizards believe that through science and discovery that humanity can solve our future problems with technology. Future problems include: How are we going to feed 10 billion people by 2050; have enough water for those 10 billion people as well as agriculture; how will we provide energy for people and jobs; and how will we avoid the ravages of climate change. The problems are inter-related. And in our opinion, it is going to take a little bit of both.
Perhaps this demonstration of the “Ring of Fire” ** will bring the sides closer together.
*See book “The Wizard and the Prophet” by Charles Mann 2018
** The Ring of Fire kiln was developed to address the issue of forestry waste
Hope you can join us!
Walker Miller and The Happy Berry Bunch