The Berry Patch

Awesome news for this year. Actually we haven't had much good news lately so I am very excited about this!

We will be adding 65 blueberries and another 80 Rasberry and Blackberry bushes!

Also Jason is planning on putting in 1050 strawberry plants this year too=D

Jason is soon registering for his Food Safety Certification and Agricultaral Safety Practice Certificates in April, so let the jerky be sold!

Our hottest item is the beef jerky right now. It is going out of here by the truckload! We never thought things would fly like they are.

As of now we are looking for investors to help get his products out on the market. If you know of anyone who does that sort of thing or which companies to ask on this, it would really be appreciated!

So our new plants are comming at the end of April. It is going to be a ton of work prepping the ground on such short notice and getting the mulch delivered in time.

We can't wait until this operation truly takes off!

Until next time,

Happy Farming!

Jason and Mary Pat Luchini

I realize it has been since the end of October since my last post, but a lot has happened from then until now.

I got through my back surgery in September and had a very painful recovery, but it was well worth it. I can actually get sleep now! How exciting=)

We found out at the begining of December that I was pregnant, but with blood tests being repeated every three days, we sadly found out that I was miscarrying.  It is a long story, but I had my tubes reconstructed in February of this year, so to make a sad ending happy, at least we know we can concieve. Hopefully we will have some good news by spring or summer time!

We have opened Luchini's Smokehouse giving us a new name and year round products! We have been very busy with orders and are slowly building up stock now.

The chickens are laying like clockwork now, so eggs are very plentiful and also for sale. I can't wait to see what this growing season gives us! It's happening and at just the right pace.

So that is the update for now, We at The Berry Patch and Luchini's Smokehouse wish everyone a very blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Until next year!

The Luchini's

Okay, it has been a while since the last post because of my unexpected back surgery. Which after a month of pain was well worth it!

Lot's has happened here at The Berry Patch in the past 6 weeks. We had our amazing October snowstorm which did quite some damage. The weight of the snow on the ring-neck pen caused it to cave in resulting in the loss of some birds. Jason was not a happy camper!

The chickens decided to finally lay some eggs! We are getting about 6 eggs a day now so we will be selling soon. The chickens have adjusted well and should be giving us about a dozen a day very soon.

We found a supplier so we can now open Luchini's Smokehouse! It's a very exciting journey so far. With so much more to come, it is just a big adrenaline rush=)

We will be taking orders in 2 weeks for the Smokehouse. If you are interested and are close by, e-mail us for an order form.

Well, for now that is about the only updates I have for you. But you know there will be more for sure coming soon!

Just hint, white turkey's are on the agenda!

Happy Farming!

The Luchini's

My son and daughter have been totally addicted to this site called FooPets. Anyway, I thought I would throw this out there for any animal lovers who have a few minutes a day to adopt their very own FooPet!

Back to the farm.... Today I spent some time with my home schooled son Tommy out in the berry patch. The focus was to paint the trees with white water based paint. This will help protect them through the harsh winter months we are so sadly looking forward to. What the paint does is help deflect the sunlight from the snow back downward, therefore protecting the tree from winter sunburn so to speak. It's like sunblock to the tree. I am also hoping that this will protect them from any little critters who might want to do some chewing!

We did get to harvest a little bit of corn this year, it was super!

I can't wait until we get a good season so we can share. It was fun learning to plow, harrow and plant. All things I have never been an active participant in until this year. My husband did most of the work along with Tommy. Shelby and I just kind of looked on for that part. But we did get some of the sunflowers to grow and that was fun!

I don't have any definate plans for next years crops yet, but my husband is getting serious about "The Smokehouse" project he has in store for the near future. Keep up with us to find out what is happening.

I would like some feedback from as many reader's as I can on this project. We would like to know the interest in the following items:

Smoked Cheese

Beef and Venison Jerky (Smoked)

Beef, Italian and Venison Sausage - Smoked

Smoked Chicken

Smoked Eggs

Smoked Pepperoni

Smoked Bacon Sides

And any other things you can think of! We are interested in knowing the demand for these items. The more demand, of course the faster this end will pick up.

We use apple and hickory wood in a hot/ cold smoke enviornment. It is an all natural process that we use and most likely can use your recipies if asked. We do however have our own special recipies that no one has been able to duplicate easily. The flavor is out of this world! My husband Jason is "The Smokehouse Chef" and me, I am Quality Control LOL> I love to taste what he makes, it is awesome!

Until next post, can't wait to hear from you!

Mary Pat and Jason

The Berry Patch and Luchini's Smokehouse!

Well it has been the absolute  worst growing season we could have asked for!

Maybe we need to pray a little louder for next year. The cold nights really took a toll on everything that we have. Even the zucchini didn't take off like it usually does.

The pheasants and chickens on the other hand are fairing pretty well. We are looking for different groups that are local or close to local that are interested in purchasing pheasants for hunting. We are planning on expanding this business with the birds if their is enough intrest shown. You can contact us at theluchinis-AT-windstream-DOT-net if you or someone you know is interested in seeing them. Please leave a name and number to contact you!

The chickens haven't started laying any eggs as of yet but they are close. The brown eggs will be on the market soon. We have a wonderful set up for them and will take any unwanted laying hens that anyone needs to find a good home for. You can contact us at the above e-mail if you need to get some chickens off your hands.

We've had great responses to our whole project and our intentions are to keep growing!

Keep checking with us each and every season, as every year there is more to offer. I may have jumped the gun on advertising too soon, BUT you know we are here and we are not going anywhere. I guess it's just like giving you a heads up.

This fall will be mostly busy with winter mulching and prep. The apples were not a crop this year at all, nor the pumpkins. Next year I am hoping the weather makes up for it. The only good thing I can say is that we have lots of new chutes that came this year and that means better crops! So not all is lost=)

I'll try to keep this updated as we begin to sell the pheasants and eggs.

Until then,Happy Farming!

Happy Farming

Of course if you are keeping up with the current page you will notice a change in our cover photo. In the photo are some of our frequent visitors to The Berry Patch, the elk. They haven't come accross the fence again thank the Good Lord!! We are however keeping a close eye on them as we always have to in the spring time.

We were held up by the rain on our interview for The Courier Express so we are rescheduling for this week. I can't wait for Katie to come back down and see all the new changes since her last visit. We have come a long way.

The corn is starting to sprout and the garden is doing well so far. All of the new bushes and trees look amazing! I am very happy with all of them and hopefully we will have the funding and the luck to place new orders for next season to expand some more.

Some of the new apple trees even have blossoms on them. The raspberries are comming along super great too. I'm really crossing my fingers for a good crop. I would love to expand a few more rows of those into the mix as well net season if our budget allows us.

The grapes aren't taking off as well as I had planned. I think we will have to start all over again on those as I haven't taken all of the time and effort I should have with that project that I should have. Live and learn and dream big I guess. We can always start new ones and learn from what we've done wrong.

Well, for now that is about all, look for new pictures and stay in touch with me also on my Facebook Page. You can find me there by searching for Mary Pat Luchini.

Until Next Time!

Mary Pat

Thursday morning we will be having our second interview with Katie W. from The Courier Express. She has done an article before on our farm and did a wonderful job so I am very excited for her to come see just how far we are right now with everything! It has been two years since she has been here and we have added lots of things=)

Jason is working on the chicken coupe slowly. Things are so hard to be getting done i such short time frames.... He's planting the corn and fining that he has too much corn to plant so we are plowing up more field and trying to prep so we can plant more in the next few weeks.

Today, my son Tom and I planted some sunflower seeds and we are hoping that they do well. Maybe we will have some edible seeds by the end of the season.

We will be done homeschooling by June the 12th so our schedule will be a little looser by then. It's very hectic right now trying to work, school, and farm! Jason is finding out that a stay at home mom really does have a lot on her plate. He is begining to appreciate women in general more now because he understands what they go through in a day. He has never had so many responsibilities on him.

Me on the other hand, am respecting his stress too. We sort of switched roles here, hopefully for a short time because I am begining to believe that God made men and women different for a reason. We can definitly handle different things in our own ways.

As far as the rest of the farm is going. The plants we started this year aren't all doing as well as they usually do. We will most likely need to just start them right in the ground so we will be a bit behind from the game plan. No big deal because we are always adjusting to something.

If we don't learn something new every day it's not worth doing this! So, I'm very excited to see how this year goes.

Happy Farming and Happy Memorial Day Weekend Planting!!

I worked yesterday from 10-4 and as soon as I got home my wonderful husband had so much work for me to do I just couldn't stop myself! I was happy as could be because if it weren't for some very good friends of ours, we never would have gotten this far in the first place.

They like to stay anonymous, so I will keep it that way, BUT they lent us some equipment we don't have just yet so we could move our mulch faster and easier. We mulched around the general area of the 41 trees and 28 bushes we just put in, but I had to do the entire rows of where they were eventually this year and it seemed so back breaking to look at it, every time I looked at it. I don't think I ever mentioned that I suffer from degenerative disc and joint disease with three already herniated discs. (yes, three =(  ) So life is pretty painful all the time for me, but yet I push on, because I have to.

Anyway, not to drift off topic. I get home, and am tickled pink because our friends saved the day for us AGAIN! LOL And my husband has been at it all day, so now it is my turn to kick in and help. So I grab a rake and head out to smooth it all down.

By the end of the day, we got it all done and I am so excited that we are this far already and have signs of fruit comming! It's so promising. Oh, and BTW, I ordered another 25 blueberry bushes because of the excellent quality of the last batch. Unbelievable! So they are going in on Thursday.

Pray for rain and lots of it this year!!

Signing off,

Blueberry Mary

They came...

We saw....

We planted!!

The bushes came yesterday while I was at work. Jason called me so excited! Those babies are top notch! Thank you Nourse Farms! I do however know the origination of those bushes, but since we do not order in the quantity that they do, we can't get them from where they do. So instead of playing around. We are getting them from the Nation's top producer f blueberry bushes.

I couldn't believe my eyes at the quality! I am just so happy with the entire order, so they will definitly be hearing from us again next year! Maybe even again this spring if they have some left!

So, we hurried up and finished prepping the ground and got them in. Now we have to finish mulching everything and we're done for now.

Next we have to wait for our seeds to come up and then we can get gardening. We are just pulling our first onions out of the ground to make room for some bigger ones to come.

I have a feeling this year is going to be productive. As I was walking through the berry patch today I noticed lots of wild strawberry blossoms. It seems early for them to be out this time of year. Time will tell I guess. Nature knows what to do most of the time. We get what we get! Hopefully we get a good crop this season!

Till next time!

I know that I have marked that we carry the American Persimmon which is supposed to be a native plant species. I however was very disappointed when they came in from being shipped. They were only like 2' tall with the roots. Now these babies really were true seedlings! You can't get any more seedling than that=)

So, I have managed to discover several new farms along Pennsylvanias "Fruit Belt" as they call it, to order from. At great prices I can't avoid the scenic drive and mouth dropping experience I get to go there every spring and see someone else had a dream like we did and it came true for them! It keeps us encouraged to visit these farms who have the same drive as we do!

Off from the ramble,because I do that alot you'll notice. I wanted to tell you about the persimmons. If you have never had one, they are awesome. They are a soft fruit with texture like a tomato but yet taste so tropical in flavor it's crazy and they grow right here! So I found a company where I can order bigger trees which = faster fruit for us. Even if we are saving 5 years, I will pay the extra cost in investment to be selling earlier!

So we are now looking at next springs order to be including at least, 80 blueberry plants, and at least 10 meader persimmon trees and 5 D'Anjou and 5 Bartlett pears.

If the cherries start to do well we are thinking of extend the field outward with cherries. We are in the testing phase to see just how they do here, so cross you fingers and lick your lips because if you live in The Berry Patch's world, we all think positive about everything! That's why the elk only got one tree when he visited inside the fence! =)

We're still waiting on that blueberry order to come in, I'll keep you posted on what's next!

I got an interesting e-mail today about elk damage and what it looks like. I guess to us we don't really think about what it looks like to identify because we see it all the time. It is very common in our area, so when I groan about it and someone has no clue about what I am talking about it's hard to relate.

I am uploading some pictures of the damage to the tree so you can see what these massive creatures can do. Keep in mind that this was a "small" elk with just spikes. He did MINOR damage compared to what they normally do! This is nothing=(

The pictures can be found on our main page.

Because they are staying at our house! We ordered the chickens and are trying our hand at raising chickens too. I couldn't remember if I filled you in on this new thing too, so I thought I would come in and give a quick blog about the chickens coming in May and some history on where The Berry Patch actually comes from.

We will be raising the chickens until they get their pin feathers and then up to the barn they go. Jason is working on building a chicken coupe out of the small barn that we are not using right now for anything. So instead of it rotting away, we are putting it to good use.

We still need to get a lot of work done around here, but it will be well worth the sweat equity in the end.

Now for some history for those of you who are a little curious about what The Berry Patch is all about. We are all about family. We're a family business,family owned and family operated. We encourage children to come to the farm and join in the picking. We always encourage education and learning. No question is a 'dumb' question. If you don't know the answer, find out!

This land is partially being inherited from Jason's Grandmother. To give a little history on it. Her and Jason's Grandfather, Helen and Frank, worked very hard to make the pasture that we are working today. They actually cleared it by hand and wheel barrow. They had to clear all the rocks and thorn apple trees that were in the field. Little by little they cleared of about ten acres. Then they raised cattle and made milk and cheese and sold it to the locals. They butchered cattle, raised chickens and all the farm things we would like to do, minus the cattle.

Jason's Grandfather also worked for a local carbon factory, like Jason. He fell ill with cancer of the stomach and passed away leaving Helen to care for their five children and the farm. Things weren't easy but she managed. After some time Helen moved back to the land she and Frank first moved from with her daughter. She still survives and with much zest for life! Frank had big plans for the farm that were never finished. Jason and I would love to carry on that dream for the Luchini farm.They were hard workers and we are too. We would love nothing more than to carry on a new dream in a green world with The Berry Patch. Helen has been so supportive in our journey and we can't thank her enough for all of her help with everything we've been able to do so far!

Thanks Gram!

It is very upsetting that all the hard work we put into planting trees and the elk have finally found their way into The Berry Patch. Only one tree has been damaged, but it is the unimaginable sign that more is to come. These creatures are so super destructive that you can't even believe what they can do to a tree unless you are someone who spends time in the wild to see it for yourself!

We have been putting a lot of energy into protecting our investment without harming the elk and we hate to have to shoot them due to crop damage. We won't revert to that unless we absolutley have to. Of course this is the wife who runs the blog and is speaking here. My husband has totally different views. He believes that if we don't take care of the problem now, it will become too large of a problem and we may as well forget aout it.

Who knows who is right and who is wrong here. All I know is that it is just another drop in the bucket to worry about. I just need to deal with one thing at a time here.  We need to work on providing a little more visibilty with the high tensile fence and getting electric to it since we had to redo it. So first things first. Then we will continue to worry.

The blueberries are coming on Thursday so we will have some more work to do by then. Hopefully we will be able to get them soaking and in the ground on time. I would hate to lose any plants because we fall behind schedule!

Until next post...

Happy gardening!

The Berry Patch

Well, I was smart enough to run out and get a new job since my husband is laid off from his right now. It's hard being a home school mom, working at putting new pants in the farm, fixing the fence to keep the elk out of here and now learning a new job.

We had planned on putting in a total of 100 blueberry plants bareroot this year from Nourse Farms, but our plans fell through when Jason lost his job. We had already $250.00 down on the almost $860.00 bill, but because we were not allowed to make payments, we had to take what we had paid for. Not that the company told us that. We decided to do it that way because we want the plants in the ground NOW! It is healthier for them this way. If we wait too long trying to pay off plants and put them in after Memorial Day they may not take and that will set us back.

So the magic number is 30 bushes and te type is Blueray. Blueray will do unremarkabley the best in our area. I've seen other Blueray's performance around here and for size, taste, and quality, you can't beat them. We also will be getting some Jersey's, Chandlers, and Little Giants. I think hitting on different sizes of berries and varieties will be important to keep all of our customers happy.

Blueberries, weather you know it or not are just like apples. There are berries for fresh eating, for baking, for jams. Each fruit will work differently in different things.

Well, we are expecting to have the berry bushes in this week, so look for more on the blog about the planting. I'm hoping that we find a good spot for them and everything goes smoothly.

Until next time....

Well, we have been waiting all year for these trees and we finally picked them up on Saturday. 41 to be exact. We got the best trees we could get our hands on and drove 4 hours to get them too. It was just like picking up an adopted child or something! Our day started at like 4:45am and our journey on the raod began at 6:00am sharp. We packed some snacks and stopped as few times as we had to.

We were headed to Aspers, PA. It is a place calld Adam's County Nursery, the finest trees are sold there. These trees are the best in the nation. You look to the left and there are trees, to the right and there are trees, acres and acres of fruit trees. Your jaw hits the floor the whole drive to the office! It's unbelievable the ammount of trees all perfectly planted and cared for on the premises. It's a dream come true to be right in the middle of it all. And to think, we are only farming on a small 10-12 acre field...

Anyway, we get the tree order and turn around and head another 4 hours home. So a total of about 8 hours in the truck are already in for the day. We got back home around 2:30pm and couldn't wait to tear the box open. We figured hey, the ground is prepped, let's get planting. Not to waste a minute, we both grabbed shovels and were planting and mulching until 8 o'clock that evening. Heck, my mom even came over to help water them in the ground the whole way. We managed to get 41 trees in. What kind? Well:

5 Montmorency Cherry

5 Bing Cherry

5 Victory Plum

5 Stanley Plum

5 White Lady Peach

5 John Boy Peach

5 Honeycrisp Apple

3 Winter Banana Apple

and

2 Gala Apple

So, our work is done until the blueberry bush order comes in and we wllbe back at it again. I will say however we are so pleased with Adams County Nursery! We will be ordering from them again for sure!!