Active Family Services

8-4-2010 ETA — Blueberry sea­son is long gone in Northern Virginia. Mark your cal­en­dars to start look­ing into local farms next May!

Hooray! It is blue­berry pick­ing sea­son again! We picked 10 pounds Saturday morn­ing to restock our freezer and are still eat­ing fresh berries by the hand­ful.  Everyone I know who vis­its seems to be com­plain­ing about the gnats and rec­om­mend­ing dryer sheets to keep them away. Otherwise, they still come away rav­ing. We were excited to find a port a potty on site this year… potty access is always a plus on any adven­ture with lit­tle kids.

Here’s the scoop from pre­vi­ous years:

Eagletree Farm & Vineyard
15126 Harrison Hill Lane
Leesburg VA 20176 (map it)
(703) 777‑5954 or
(703) 851‑0699

Loudoun Valleys Office of Rural Economic Development says:

Eagletree is a pri­vate set­ting with a per­sonal touch.

These folks are right. Located off Rt. 15 north of Leesburg — you turn off 15 like you are going to Temple Hall Farm and then fol­low the U-PICK signs — the set­ting is so pri­vate that I at first felt like I was tres­pass­ing in someone’s back yard, but that is exactly what makes the pick­ing expe­ri­ence so wonderful.

Eagletree’s pick your own blue­ber­ries are $4 per pound this year and worth every cent. They are tasty and the expe­ri­ence of pick­ing is per­fect. I have been twice and both times it was a serene expe­ri­ence. No chaos, no crowds, no short­age of blue­ber­ries… just a nice lit­tle fam­ily expe­ri­ence and some yummy blue­ber­ries to boot.

If you are look­ing to round out your blue­berry pick­ing expe­ri­ence with some lit­er­a­ture for lit­tle peo­ple, check out Robert McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal. It’s been a favorite since my child­hood… so much so that I feel I am short­chang­ing my chil­dren if I don’t man­age to hunt down their lit­tle metal buck­ets so that they can hear their blue­ber­ries go “Kerplunk!”

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