U-Pick season for Tom West Blueberries begins

IF YOU GO

U-pick

Tom West Bluberries offers a chance to pick your own fresh berries. The U-Pick season runs from April to June, and the farm is open to the public. There are four varieties of berries ranging from tart to super-sweet. 

WHERE: 324 E. Orlando Ave., Ocoee. 

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

INFORMATION: (407) 656-3223 or TomWestBlueberries.com.

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A delegation of 100 blueberry farmers from around the country visited the Tom West property last month to learn how the fruit is grown in Florida. The guests, many from colder climes, were in Orlando for a U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council conference and spent part of a day touring several Central Florida farms.

At Tom West Blueberries, off Orlando Avenue, growers got a lesson in farming practices and processes as they walked through a portion of the 10-acre Ocoee property.

“For us to be only four or five years into this, it’s an honor,” Susan Hembree, sales and marketing manager, said of the visit.

Tom West Blueberries was born on land that was cultivating grounds for Tom West’s oranges, grapefruit, tangerines and other citrus fruits in the 1950s. His son, Milton West, joined the family business in 1964. 

After several devastating freezes wiped out a large portion of their trees, Tom West and his grandson, Scott West, decided to start growing blueberries in 2010. They planted bushes in a 5-acre field. That farm was doubled the following year after Tom West’s death, and there are now 22,000 blueberry plants at the Orlando Avenue location.

The business is still expanding — 40,000 bushes were recently planted on farmland on Ocoee Apopka Road. It will take a few years for the newest farm to be ready for substantial picking.

In addition to the father-son team running the family business, Milton’s daughters, Hembree and Stacy Williams, run the office. Susan takes care of sales, marketing and auditing, and Stacy is in charge of office operations.

Joining Scott in the farming is Kevin Laird.

Tom West Blueberries offers the community a chance to pick their own fresh berries. 

Four blueberry varieties are available: Emerald, a large, sweet and crunchy berry; Jewel, a large, tart berry purchased mainly for commercial use; Primadonna, which is sweet and crunchy; and the Spring High, a large berry that is super-sweet early in the season.

Wagons are available for pulling young children, and a tractor makes frequent sweeps around the farm for guests who have trouble managing the terrain but still want to pick their own berries.

The price is $4 per pound. There is no entrance fee and no sampling fee — just in case you need to find out how sweet or tart the berry bush is. Already-picked fruit is available for purchase, too.

The farm is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The U-Pick season runs from April 18 through June, “depending on God and Mother Nature,” Hembree said.

The West family looks forward to warmer weather, because that’s when the blooms and the bees come out. Honeybees are rented and bumblebees are purchased to help with pollination.

In the spring and early summer, the farm is a neighborhood destination for some folks, many of whom walk there for the picking. Because it’s in an urban area, with Ocoee Middle and Elementary schools nearby, the Wests provide field trips for students, teaching them the basics of farm-to-grocery-store and what it takes to run a blueberry farm.

They are also given clamshells so they can pick and take some berries with them. 

Customers don’t need to worry about those small shells, though. They have access to larger buckets to collect their sweet (or tart) haul.

Contact Amy Quesinberry Rhode at [email protected].