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  • Gracie Mize, two, picks blackberries on her family’s farm near Canton, called the Troubadour Blackberry Farm. Her two brothers, are picking blackberries, too. Instead of picking on their little sister. Her brothers are Caden, four, and Camden, six. They are the children of John and Amber Mize, and their farm opened for public business just last month. Courtesy photo

    blackberries
July 1, 2009

Pick your own berries

By ART LAWLER

Want to keep the kids from getting bored this summer?

Have them pick some berries. That’s what the John and Amber Mize family does, and their three kids don’t even complain.

At least not most of the time.

Gracie, 2, Caden, 4, and Camden 6 take their little containers and pick the berries because, well, mainly because, they like the blackberry cheesecake, and the blackberry cobbler their mother, Amber Mize, bakes out on the farm.

It’s the parents way of teaching the little ones how to live off the land.

The Troubadour Blackberry Farm opened for public business about a month ago.

It’s located 10 miles from Canton, 17 miles from Kaufman and 15 miles from Mabank..

It’s open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the week and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays.

Want a map?

OK, go to www.troubadourblackberry

farm.com.

You’ll find instructions on how to get there, regardless of which direction you’re coming from.

“We wanted our children to have memories to pass on to their children, as well as all the health benefits that come with natural fruits and vegetables. We want to offer that to residents of the surrounding area,” Amber Mize said.

“It’s just a summer thing, something for the family to do together,” she said.

“We had an ag exemption and we didn’t raise cows,” she said. “So this was a project we could do as a family.”

Longtime area residents will remember John Mize as the Mabank High School band director, which he was for about a decade.

Today, he’s the band director for Kaufman High School.

Amber also taught school for a few years, but now she stays home, baking cobblers and cheesecakes, and picking blackberries.

Every morning. Every evening.

She doesn’t even mind picking the thorny ones, she said.

By the way, if you want to pick berries out there that aren’t thorny, you’re in luck.

Forty one of the 43 rows are for “non-thorny” types of blackberries.

The other has thorns, but even then, Amber says she seldom has to worry about getting “stuck.”

John is working in the field, each day this summer.

Within a year, the couple plans to have a store and picnic areas for people who want to pick berries, eat and linger for awhile.

Still, there’s a place to come and sit on lawn chairs at the front of the house.

Why blackberries?

Well, Mize, out near Wise, is growing blackberries instead of blueberries because of the soil.

“We first considered growing blueberries, but our soil didn’t test right,” said John’s wife, Amber. “So we moved our attention to blackberries.”

You’ve got 2,100 plants to choose from if you want to pick your own. This included six different varieties.

“Now that the initial work is done, we’re extremely happy with blackberries,” said John Mize.

If you’re a sissy about thorns, don’t worry. Ninety five percent of the plants are thornless.

If you just must find the other five percent, it’s the last two rows.

For those of you too busy to stop and smell the blackberries, they’ll package them up for you for a nominal fee.

Let’s say, all you want is some blackberry cobbler, ready to go, it’ll cost you $10.

Just order up.

Other items for the purchasing include blackberry cheesecake and preserves.

Amber Mize is the daughter of Canton residents, Steve and Barbara Glosup, grandparents, and Bill and Daphine Freeman, who are residents in the Mabank/Canton area.

John Mize grew up with similar memories in rural Mississippi where he picked blueberries on his family’s land.

This journey began after the family moved to the area three years ago.

That’s when they bought the 10-acre tract of land.

Blackberries require a lot of water, but the family has its own irrigation system, drawing water from their pond.

The cheesecake contains homemade blackberry sauce.

“I bake it into the cake first, and then I pour it on later and put it in the refrigerator.”

She said she’s received a lot of favorable comments and some repeat customers because of cheesecakes and cobblers.

I get up and make it early each morning,” she said. “We have preserves, too, and we do those every evening.”

When you arrive on the farm a big sign on Highway 243, from Kaufman to Canton will greet you, Amber promises.

A picture of the farm can be found on their web page.

“It’s a painting by Arnold Pena of Mabank. He stood in the far corner, and took a picture of the farm. Then he painted it.”

It’s not all about agricultural beauty and good eating, though.

“It’s very hard work,” Amber said. “A lot more than we imagined.”

She said the toughest part is managing the weeds, but we have a really nice trellace system to lift the stems of the plants off the ground, so people can pick the berries. It really helps,” Amber said.

“We have six different varities. We’re experimenting, to see which produce the most,” she said. “Each day. I pick early in the morning for about two hours.

After putting the cheesecake and cobbler in the oven for the day, she picks berries while those items cook.

Here’s a price list of what’s out there:

Blackberries:

. • U-Pick: $2 per pound;

• Pre-picked, bagged: $3 per pound;

• Pre-picked pint garden: $2 per pint;

• Pre-picked pint carton: $2 per pint;

• Pre-picked pound carton: $3.25 per carton;

• Gallon bucket: $10.

Blackberries, plus:

• Blackberry jam: $5 (16 ounces);

• Blackberry preserves: $5 (16-ounces);

• Blackberry cobbler: $10;

• Blackberry cheesecake: $10;

• Blackberry tea: 75 cents per cup.

• Blackberry lemonade: 75 cents a cup;

For more information contact John and Amber Mize at 903-848-9108 or 469-595-1100.





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Pick your own berries
by By ART LAWLER , , Wed Jul 01, 2009, 09:36 AM EDT
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