Last weekend Connor and I went on a raspberry picking adventure at a u-pick farm.
Have you ever visited a u-pick farm? There’s quite a few up here, and there a lot of fun, especially with kids.
At Boring Farms (yes, that’s the name), which is located about 30 minutes north of Marin county in the rural town of Sebastapol, you can pick as many raspberries off the vine as your heart desires!
Here’s how it works. You first make an online reservation and pay for a parking pass. Then on the day of your adventure, you arrive at a designated time before 12.
Before you enter the farm, you receive a short lesson from Rachel, the owner, on how to pick raspberries and where to pick them, and which of the different species has more thorns or less. We stuck to the areas with the minimal thorns!
How to eat raspberries properly
Rachel the owner says you’re supposed to use your tongue to push the raspberry up against the roof of your mouth to break it open. That way you get maximum flavor and minimum seeds in between your teeth. Who knew?
Another thing I learned from Rachel is that it’s wise to wear boots that cover your ankles when you’re raspberry picking. I had on cropped jeans and no-show socks, and my ankles kept getting poked by the plants.
Anyway, you then get a box to fill up with an many berries as you want. When you’re done, you pay for them by the pound.
Oh, at the register there’s also raspberry snacks available, including raspberry lemonade and raspberry popsicles. Connor opted for chocolate covered raspberry popsicle option.
If you want, you can bring in a picnic lunch and enjoy it by the pond, and then you can visit with the cows that live on the property.
One last thing—wear a hat because there isn’t a lot of shade in the picking area. Also, maybe think about taking your allergy meds beforehand, or bring them with you. I had a massive allergy attack that day and was basically out of commission once we got home. Eek! Still, it’s a fun thing to do if you’re ever up in Sonoma county and want to be outdoors.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Looks like an idyllic outing! Best use of a summer day, and one you’ll both remember. My children loved picking raspberries at Grandma’s house.
Never been to a place like that. I had to leave California at the age of 9, and the trips we made were to amusement parks, San Diego Zoo, and the capitol building in Sacramento (not really sure why my parents wanted to go to Sacramento). Got to see Graumann’s Chinese Theater (its name then) and the La Brea Tar Pits. Saw San Francisco once – probably because we were just about to move out of CA and my parents wanted to see it before we left. That was the hippie heyday of SF. Texas’ climate is such (Hell on Earth) that a pick-yourself farm would have to be open in late Oct. – Nov. to get any business – and that’s probably too late for the crops.
Yes, I’ve been to a farm like that! It was a strawberry farm in Nipomo. The strawberries were so sweet!
When I was in grade school, we lived in a home with both currant AND raspberry bushes and my mom made wonderful jelly/jam. How much more simple and appreciated things were then.
What a wonderful post!
L
❤️
Looks like fun! (Minus the allergy attack of course). Every October I try to visit my son, his wife and my grandkids in Virginia and we all go apple picking. It’s such fun! Temperatures are cooler and it’s a nice break for me (I live in South Florida).