WELCOME TO QUALLA BERRY FARM
We've had a good June raspberry picking but the heat has shortened our season.
Please add your address to our email list to receive picking alerts.
NEXT U-PICK OPENING: mid-September
Karen Hurtubise and John Clarke invite you to
come pick fresh delicious
organically grown raspberries…
We offer U-Pick red raspberries in June and September. Our picking hours vary according to weather and availability of berries, and our work schedules. We post picking updates on this website and send email updates to those on our mailing list.
We also occasionally offer raspberry plants, potted or bare root, for those who would like
to grow their own.
Qualla Berry Farm is located at 3274 Qualla Road, Hayesville, North Carolina.
ABOUT QUALLA BERRY FARM
Our red raspberries are grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides in double dug French intensive style beds. They are a prolific locally adapted variety and they bloom twice a year, bearing fruit in June and September.Our stock came from a man in Hiawassee, Georgia who retrieved the plants from the woods and propagated the berries years ago. He and the farm are gone now but a friend saved us the starts— we began our raspberry patch with about a dozen plants in 1995 and now have about 900 linear feet of 30" wide beds in raspberries. Our berries are pollinated by our own honeybees and have done well in our well-drained bottomland soil.
Surrounding the raspberry rows on our farm are an organic vegetable and flower
garden, experimental fruit orchard in which Asian Pears have been our most
successful trees, a blueberry orchard, and a labyrinth surrounded by cherry trees.
We have two colonies of honeybees which produce a wonderful sourwood honey.
ABOUT U-PICK: We realized early on that our plants were going to produce more berries than we could possibly use ourselves. After trying some other options, we decided that the best way to share our berries was to have people come pick their own so they would get them at their freshest. We have enthusiastic regular pickers who enjoy the camaraderie of picking alongside other raspberry lovers. Raspberries are delicate fruits with almost no shelf life so it’s best to pick them yourself for fresh use right away, or to freeze them or make them into jam.
ABOUT LOCAL FOOD:
Qualla Berry Farm is part of a loose community of growers and marketers throughout
western NC who are seeking to provide locally grown food to people who live and visit
the mountains. We are helping to develop ways to keep our rural land in agricultural production. We are listed in the Local Food Guide produced by the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project. For more about U-Pick farms, tailgate markets, and community supported agriculture growers, see their website: www.buyappalachian.org
