Alford Family Farm (located at 199 Private Road 6181 in Emory, Texas) is an 110-acre family farm featuring 9 acres of mature pecan trees and 5 acres of blueberry and blackberry plants.
From the Alford Family Farm Facebook Page:
"We are a family farm growing a diverse number of crops in a healthy, sustainable way. These include blueberries and blackberries which we sell through our CSA, farmers market, and Pick Your Own. We have 380 mature Pecan trees that we harvest each year. Our son has a young muscadine grape vineyard, a 2 acre vegetable garden, an aquaponic greenhouse, 150 young peach trees and 7,000 Irises. We also raise non-GMO, antibiotic free chickens, Belted Galloway Cattle, and have a number of farm animals just as pets such as our laying chickens, dogs, silkies, goats, etc."
I really wanted to make it down to Nacogdoches for the Blueberry Festival but with James working a double at the fire station it just wasn't going to be feasible. I had recently stumbled across the Alford Family Farm website and decided to load up the kids for a trip to a "real farm".
Isabella is my blueberry eating kid - in fact, we just had homemade blueberry pancakes the night before. I am wishing now we had some of these fresh blueberries, right off the vine instead of the ones I purchased from the store. It just doesn't get any fresher than when you pick them yourself!
The best part of the entire trip to Alford Family Farm was watching Ian experience it all. He had no problem figuring out what to do and was on his merry way filling his own little bushel of blueberries. (Those little striped overalls + chubby little fingers = dying of cuteness, am I right?)
We were the only ones visiting the farm at the time (check their Facebook page regularly for updates on hours/ rain delays/ availability, etc). It was such a fun little summertime family outing! The owners couldn't have been nicer. We were greeted by Tom and Patty - and their son, Michael- as soon as we pulled up. (We bought a jar of Michael's blackberry jelly that I can't wait to try!)
The kids had a blast picking berries and visiting with all the animals. They had a dozen or so baby guinea fowl inside the garage that they let us take a peek at. Sophia was just dying to pet one - they were so fluffy and cute! I already know we will be making many trips to Alford Family Farm during berry season. This would be a great place to bring your family, kids, classes, 4H or scouts groups, etc.
Now what to do with all of these big, juicy blueberries? Here are a few of my favorite blueberry recipes:
