As June turned to July, we began experiencing a series of 100-degree-plus daily high temperatures here in Southern Oregon, so we gladly steered our car north on Interstate 5 to spend the long Fourth of July weekend with friends and family in Portland. It turned out that Portland was only slightly cooler than Medford, but there are considerably more large trees and lush green vegetation there, so it felt cooler!

Wednesday morning, daughter Jenny, granddaughter June and I made our way to Hoffman Farms in the nearby rural Washington County community of Scholls. We drove past vast apartment and condo complexes and newer neighborhoods, observing how the need for housing keeps pushing the suburban-rural boundary farther west all the time. It was obvious when we crossed the Urban Growth Boundary (it’s an Oregon land use thing), as immediately we were surrounded by pastures, orchards and fields boasting a variety of crops. Shortly thereafter we turned into the farm’s parking lot, noting how many folks had come, like us, to pick a variety of berries before the day grew too warm.

Officially know as Hoffman Farms Store, it is owned and run by a family that has been farming for six generations. Their operation boasts acres of many varieties of blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, Marionberries, boysenberries and tayberries as well as cereal grains and grass seed. A large, refurbished barn on the property hosts weddings and events, a bakery produces pies made from those berries, and there’s a commercial blueberry packing facility and a one-third scale railroad that can deliver you to the berry fields, avoiding a long walk.   Most folks come to U-pick their berries, but one can buy them already in their flats in the farm store,  along with pies and notoriously fabulous berry shakes and other goods.

After we’d unloaded our wagon and berry-picking buckets from the car (the farm does provide wagons and boxes for those who don’t bring their own), we headed toward the fields. Along the way we passed a rusting row of old farm machinery (my dad would have loved that!);  the farm’s iconic pickup truck;  and a large, grassy, fenced-in playground dominated by an enormous mountain of huge tires and a harvester-turned-climbing structure, complete with slide.   Everything was clean and well-maintained and -thought-out. Tall flags of various colors waved over the rows of bushes and canes, each color identifying the type of berry growing there. We first checked out the raspberries but nabbed a very few, as they seemed to be pretty well picked-over. Jenny has a number of heavily producing blueberry bushes in her yard, so we walked right past those and went straight to the Marionberries. This variety of blackberry, developed in the 1950s right here in Oregon, makes wonderful pies, boasting the right balance of sweetness with a touch of tartness. The berries are large (many the size of an adult’s first thumb joint) and glossy purple to black.

Photo 21208834 © Zigzagmtart | Dreamstime.com

It didn’t take long for us to fill up our boxes and buckets;  the canes were loaded with big, juicy berries, and one didn’t need to risk getting scratched by the thorns to reach far in to the vines to harvest them. Although Jenny and I did most of the picking, we kept June occupied as the bearer of the boxes; she shuttled back and forth between us to gather our handfuls of the fruit. Afterward, as Jenny wheeled our bounty to the farm store to be weighed (16 pounds!) and paid for, June and I visited the playground, where she played Queen of the Mountain atop the tires. .  

We ended our farm experience sitting in the shade on a picnic table, slurping up cool, creamy strawberry shakes from the Farm Store. We’d timed our trip perfectly, as the morning was rapidly warming up. The next day I made up a pie from the berries for our Fourth of July celebration. I have to say it was awfully good, made more so by the memories of our three-generation picking party at Hoffman Farms.

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor