Muskrat Haven Farms — Attraction in Warrenton

Decided to spend a pleasant few hours picking some berries so I drove over to Muskrat Haven, and the nice little girl at the counter told me that blueberries, red raspberries, and black raspberries were ripe.

The blueberry bushes were all right and there were quite a lot of berries. The berries were awfully small, though; there has been plenty of rain so it looks like the owner hasn't been fertilizing them. He certainly hasn't been mulching them -- the blueberry patch was awfully weedy.

I went to the raspberry section, and it was nothing BUT weeds. Big weeds, small weeds, all kinds of weeds. Occasionally I'd see a berry bramble emerging from the weed thicket, but there were no berries worth picking. The poor raspberries couldn't compete with the weeds.

The blackberries weren't ripe yet, but those bushes are weedy as well. The owner is just stinkin' lazy -- he has a huge pile of shredded hardwood mulch that he could use to keep the weeds down, but he can't be bothered. Maybe 150 cubic yards of mulch, and it's just sitting...

I called before I went and asked if I'd be able to pick 10 flats easily. They said picking was terrific. I was extremely disappointed. They had strawberries, but they were small and so covered in tall weeds you couldn't see the berries at all. The patch with fewer weeds had older plants that gave only a few berries. They spray with herbicide, but not pesticides. Will...

Awesome blueberries and black raspberries! So many to pick and we were the only ones there. Great family outing for...