Paula Lorre pics blueberries at Floresta Farms in Ashland.

This time of year, Paula Lorre and her husband, Asa Lorre, open their rows of U-pick blueberry bushes on Fridays and Saturdays.

Their property, at 1133 Old Highway 99 S., outside Ashland, Floresta Farm, is two acres of all organic permaculture, she said. The roughly 1,000 bushes of blueberries may look unkept to the untrained eye, but everything has a purpose.

“In permaculture, everything helps the other. The tall grass deters the birds and it helps keep moisture,” Lorre said.

She advised prospective blueberry pickers to not only wear proper clothing for the ticks and other insects who also enjoy the permaculture, but to consider waterproof shoes — sometimes the rows get a little soggy. Street parking is limited, so carpooling is a good idea, and while the farm has some containers for picking, visitors will need something to carry their berries home. The blueberries cost $4.50 per pound, cash only.

Visitors never seem to come to pick just one pound.

“They come out to load up. … Some families will compete, like who can pick the most berries? And then we weigh it up at the end and someone’s like, ‘Ha, ha, I won,’” Lorre said.

She has never put a limit on how many pounds anyone can pick, and she’s never run out of berries.

Picking berries and dropping them into a jug latched onto her belt, she looked across the field at her bushes.

“Sometimes I think about just selling all the berries, like to a company that would come out and pick them and sell them in a store. I don’t know; if it happens and it’s a good deal maybe I’ll do it. But people seem to enjoy having it for the community,” she said.

Visitors often thank her for providing the service. They come with kids of all ages, little ones impulsively popping berries into their mouths, older ones competitively picking. Visitors in general sometimes seem to wander and allow themselves to get lost in the bushes. She imagines it does them good the same as it does her and her husband.

Neither of them come from an agricultural background — Paula hails from Brazil.

“When we first started, I didn’t even know blueberries came from bushes,” Lorre said.

The connection to where food comes from and how labor intensive agriculture is has been an eye-opening and enriching experience for them, she said. It seems to be for visitors too.

The rest of Floresta Farm — from the fruit trees to the chickens — is for the couple’s food supply and fun, but it doesn’t pay the bills. The Lorres both work full time jobs in town, necessitating flexible U-pick times. The berries are also at the mercy of the environment.

“We haven’t actually had a chance for people to pick Legacy,” she said, pointing to a blueberry variety in the farthest row. “The last two years the season has been cut short because of fires or we didn’t have water.”

The couple’s farm is watered through the Talent Irrigation District, often affected by drought. Last year she estimated the farm got about 10 days of water.

Standing in the rows of Legacy, the berry clumps were mostly green. But on each cluster a few were deep blue and sweet. The rows closest to the road — an early-maturing variety named Duke — the bushes were all heavy with rich, sweet berries in deep cobalt and midnight blue. Between the rows of Legacy and Duke, another variety, Draper, was coming in beautifully too.

“People often ask me, ‘which one’s the best?’ I don’t know, they’re all good. … And people say they taste floral. They all taste different to me,” Lorre said.

She has observed their berries not only taste better but last longer than conventional store-bought blueberries. Above all, the Lorres are proud of them. 

“Sometimes people say, ‘I don’t like blueberries.’ I tell them, ‘You haven’t tried my blueberries,’” she said with a smile.

The Farm’s Facebook page is updated on a roughly weekly basis with dates and times for picking. The season will likely last a few more weeks.

For more information, see facebook.com/ashlandpermaculture.