Lyna Berry Farm & Southern Peach Company, Fort Lonesome
Today was a double whammy, make that a triple whammy of peaches and berries and sushi. Oh, my…stomach. Last month while looking for things to do in the area I learned of a local u-pick peach orchard, but it wasn’t quite the peach season. So I made a note to check it out when the time came.
When the time came…I failed to remember. But Christa remembered, like Pepperidge Farms. My wife suggested we go that morning and informed me that it was located in Fort Lonesome; a point on a map I had been interested in seeing…and just did, several days ago when we drove an alternate route home from Little Manatee State Park. But how did I miss the presence of a peach orchard and blueberry farm?
I love berries—l-o-v-e—love berries (almost as much as chocolate and cheese). I love the tasty sweet morsels of juice with the distinct flavors known only to those fruits: raspberries, blackberries, black raspberries, blueberries, mulberries, strawberries, gooseberries, grapes. Sure, grapes. I’m lumping grapes in with berries because it turns out half those berries I listed aren’t berries but grapes are.
I’m not a botanist, so that don’t confront me. Long as I get my mouth full of juicy fruit by the handful without peeling or coring, then it’s a berry in my book (shut up, kumquat) and I love em. A tangy flavorful fruit in a burst of naturally sweet juice—nature’s candy. Although, that’s more like nature’s Chewels.
Except when they aren’t sweet and or juicy. Then they’re just morsels of mealy mush. There is little worse eating than biting into a bright red strawberry, a plump purple blueberry, a shiny tiny clustery blackberry or it’s fuzzy pink cousin raspberry only to taste a bitter, dry, tasteless mass of meh.
Store-bought berries tend to be less than optimal because it is integral to their shelf life as shipped produce that they are picked before their peak, and thus they never will achieve their prime flavor potential. Also, waiting until the local season has its benefits. Like when Peeps used to only be available for Easter in only chick shapes. Then came bunnies. As time makes a marshmallow rabbit grow firmer, so does absence makes the rabid heart grow fonder, and this may be more true with food than with people.
Get your fruits straight from the source. Pick them yourself, then you know exactly how long they’ve been out on their own—a young ripe berry lost in a mass of other berries trying to survive in a big strange world where everyone’s out to devour them.
Lyna Berry Farm in Fort Lonesome was about forty minutes from our house and coincidentally, they happened to be just down the road from The Southern Peach Company whom we had also planned to visit. Serendipity does exist. Or maybe it’s simply calculated plant husbandry in a market economy.
First, we’d stop at the Southern Peach Company and pick some sweet and juicy ripe peaches, then we’d head over to Lyda berry farm and pluck some juicy sweet blueberries, then we’d get some lunch on the way home, then we’d eat some fresh peaches and fresh blueberries until our stomachs cried out for mercy. Then we’d eat some more.
Flashing red lights of an intersection appeared on the horizon–Fort Lonesome. This crossroads gave me a strong Dirty Mary Crazy Larry vibe. I may need to trade in the sporty little runabout for a Hemi Mopar if we’re going to stick around.
We turned right onto Rt. 674, but only for a second because the entrance to The Southern Peach Company was just to our left. We pulled through a gap in the rustic board fencing and shady oaks into a grassy field beside the rows of lush peach trees and fell into formation with the other parked cars.
It was a picture-perfect morning. The sun was peering from behind billowy cotton clouds in an otherwise blue sky. Mid-morning April warmth required no jackets. As my eyes moved from the stratosphere to the treetops, I became aware of little black dots bouncing around the air. My first thought was bees, attracted by the sweet peach juice. But I was wrong, these were different, they had longer wings and looked almost like—dragonflies?
They were dragonflies, as I confirmed when I snapped a string of rapid shots and later zoomed in on the image. They wouldn’t hold still long enough to identify otherwise. They were everywhere you looked and shifting focus hurt the eyes after a minute of trying to follow them. Strange; I wonder what was attracting them. The peaches?
The Southern Peach Company
13231 SR-674
Lithia, Florida
Season: April to May – Specific dates vary (This year’s season was April 27 to May 19)
Hours: 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Days vary based on weather and crop conditions. Watch their Facebook page for updates.
www.facebook.com/TheSouthernPeachCompany/
We ambled up to the rustic board and batten shed that housed the Southern Peach Company storefront. A guy in shades sat behind the counter talking to a local sheriff and smiled as we approached. “Here to pick some peaches?” he gathered. We didn’t masquerade. “Yes,” we nodded. He asked if it was our first time and we said it was our first time in Florida.
He grabbed a small pink and yellow fruit from a display and had us give it a squeeze. “That’s what you want them to feel like when you pick them. That’s a ripe peach.” We were to look for firm fruit that yields to a medium pressure. Not rocks, but not sponges, either. Somewhere toward the rock side of the slider, though. He offered us a bucket and pointed us to the rows—we got it made.
Unlike the orange grove where you pay by the pound, At The Southern Peach Company, you pay by the volume. A bucket full would run you $12 or two would be $20. We couldn’t possibly eat two bucket’s worth before they rotted, so we opted for one.
It didn’t matter how full your bucket was, if they didn’t fall out they were yours, so we felt better about eating one or two trial peaches in the orchard. We’d just not pick the last two we’d otherwise pick, thereby not cheating the place. It seemed logical to me, at least Christa just shook her head.
Due to Florida’s climate of sweltering sun and sandy soil, the peaches here don’t become the bocce ball sized monsters that they do up north, but that doesn’t make them any less sweet and delicious. Perhaps it makes them better because you get to spend more time walking through the rows looking for the perfect fruit and filling your bucket with that many more snack-sized drupes.
We found a quiet row to begin our hunt. It took zero effort; the trees were so laden with fruit they caused some branches to cascade toward the earth. There were ripe peaches on every limb and these were not towering trees, they stood little more than twice the height of Christa, so practically everyone was within reach. We could have filled a bucket from the first tree we came to, but we paced ourselves, just like in the orange groves, to maximize the experience.
We’d squeeze to test the ripeness, twist and pull to free the fruit and place it in the two-gallon bucket. I could not hold back and tried the first one I plucked. For starters, I thought the test peach he gave us felt a bit too firm based on my experience with the jumbo peaches back home in Pennsylvania. It felt too hard to be juicy and sweet, more like an unripe peach.
I chose one that felt closest to what I remembered only minutes ago and brought it to my nose. It was smooth, barely fuzzy and at first glance, I thought we were mistakenly in rows of nectarines, but they were peaches, only with short micro fuzz. It smelled like a peach, but faint, as if the skin was sealing the flesh in a vacuum.
I bit in—there it was. The flesh hit my tongue in a flash of sweet and tart. The peach flavor was strong but mild, with the natural sugary sweetness coming through immediately to flood the experience. Then, only a fraction of a second after that initial jolt, the juice came forth and increased as I chewed. Yes, it dribbled down my chin, it couldn’t be helped—I bit a bit too deep at first and my bottom tooth lodged in the pit, leaving gaps at the corners of my mouth where the nectar escaped. I like it firm and fruity.
These were cling, not freestone peaches and I had to nibble away at the pit to get every bit of the flesh from the seed. I tossed it into the underbrush and now satisfied that the guy was correct in his advice (you think?) went about the task of filling the bucket.
I insisted Christa sample one as well. There’s simply nothing better than eating a peach right from the tree when the inside is still retaining the cool of night but the outside is warming in the sun and the sweet juices are being drawn out to toward the skin. You bite in and get the sweet splash of warm juice followed by the cool flesh of the inner fruit. Standing in the midst of all those trees, your hand and lips sticky from the nectar—it’s a truly happy moment in life and one every person should experience at least once.
We filled up our bucket with the rosy yellow fruit, save for two, and walked back to the shed to pay. An antique table was set with a big glass urn of sliced peaches floating in lemonade with plastic cups for complimentary refreshment. It was an instant mix but refreshing and appreciated.
We paid for our fruit and went back to the car. We still had blueberries to pick so I had brought along a cooler to keep the fruit from baking in the hot car. We stowed the peaches in the chest, turned out of the Southern Peach Company and headed down the road for the blueberries.
Further east on FL-674 was Bill Taylor Road and a plastic yard sign indicating u-pick blueberries somewhere down that lane. A second sign declared “The Southern Barn – Lonesome G Ranch.” We made the left and followed the white horse fence past fields and farmettes, stately oaks with Spanish moss, horses, and cattle.
We soon came to The Southern Barn on our right, a horse farm turned/doubling as a function venue, maybe for weddings and such. There was a rustic gas station, a pretty white painted barn and a windmill. Our destination was still further up the road, but not too far as just past The Southern Barn, the field to the left of us became flush with rows of blueberry bushes.
We traced the post and wire fence to the steel gate hung with a banner for Lyda Berry Farm. Something small zipped by the window—more dragonflies. They were here too, swarming everywhere. What’s gives?
Lyna Berry Farm
Phone: (813) 728-9132
Season: April and May – Specific dates vary (This year’s season was April 26 to May 13)
Hours: Sunday to Saturday – 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
May close for inclement weather. Watch their Facebook page for updates.
www.facebook.com/lynaberryfarms/
We entered the gate to Lyna Berry Farm and drove slowly down the narrow lane, pulling as far to the right as we could to allow another car to leave past us. Turning a corner we came to the tin-roofed shelter that housed the operation. We parked and made our way for round two of pick our own fruit day.
A woman stood at a table tying lengths sash cord to two gallon white buckets. “First time?” She showed us how to tie a bucket around our waists so to have two hands to do the picking.
I later found that these blueberries were very prone to falling from the plant at the slightest touch so it’s also nice to use one hand to brace the stem and the other to gently pluck and catch the ripe berries without the unripe or unwanted berries falling to the ground. It’s going to happen anyway–it’s just the nature of the fruit, but I felt better reducing the waste as much as possible.
We strapped up and entered the rows of bushes. We were only going to get a bucket full, if that, but opted to each wear a bucket so we could go our own ways. The bushes were packed with ripe berries and plenty more unripe ones. This was going to be a bumper year. I overheard one of our Lyna Berry Farm hosts telling another customer that the late cold snaps helped the berries become extra sweet this year. Bonus.
We split up as Christa went to fill her pail and I meandered, collecting more pics on my SD card than fruit in my pail. I also dropped a few light handfuls down my gullet to make sure the big fat ones were sweet, as well as the medium ones, and the tiny pearls. There didn’t seem to be a correlation between size and sweetness, regardless of mass, some were sweet, others were tart, and together they made for a complex mouthful of flavor that I tried very hard to resist indulging in too often. The mind is honest, but the flesh is weak.
Tart, sweet, sour, floral, blueberry. How do you describe fruit flavors other than these terms? What does blueberry taste like other than a blueberry? I guess I could go the wine route and speak of notes of vanilla or some such nonsense, but you know what a blueberry tastes like, so when I say, these berries were some of the most delicious blueberries I’ve had, you can fathom what was going on in my mouth.
I snapped a few pics, plucked some berries, snapped some pics, plucked some berries. Disembodied voices rose from the dense rows and wove through the branches to my ears. A woman nearby but hidden in the depths of the eight-foot shrubs was conversing with her friend and anyone else who wandered in her view. Christa wandered into her view. I overheard the conversation shift to cats served in Chinese restaurants and struggled to hear where it was going, but my wife excused herself to inspect some untapped bushes in the next lot.
The conversationalist stopped to say she needed to go back for more buckets. How many berries was she picking? I imagined her kitchen soon full of steaming pies chock full of the purple gelled berries. A few cooling in her window. A hobo slips one off the sill, drops some coins, and runs through the gate. My imagination lives in the 1890’s.
Unless you were buying several gallons, you didn’t really need to venture beyond the first place you stopped–the Lyna Berry Farm bushes were teeming with ripe blueberries. I just kept walking around to explore and make an event of it.
We reunited on a tractor path and assessed our harvest. Together, we had just under a two-gallon pail, so we called it a morning and went to pay. It cost $15 for the blueberries and with the $12 in peaches, we had a reasonably priced bounty now resting in the cooler in our car. Lunchtime.
On our way out, we asked the ladies of Lyna Berry Farm about the dragonflies. It turns out to be mating season. It’s not peach juice or berry juice the long-tailed bugs were after, it was love ju—you can fathom what was going on in my mind.
We headed back toward the Fort Lonesome crossroads and waited our turn amongst the Mosaic fleet and eighteen wheelers that travel these back roads like ants. A left from FL-39 onto Lithia Pinecrest Rd. had us heading for our lunch destination–Sunflower Cafe for sushi and teriyaki chicken.
Back home, we poured our peaches into our nice decorative serving bowl that no one will see but us. They looked a treat and I pulled two aside to immediately eat.
The blueberries did not get a wash, as per the farm instructions. I lined a sheet pan with paper towels to absorb any damp and keep the fruit from contacting the aluminum and poured them onto the tray in a shallow layer to keep them from squishing each other. Then I wrapped them loosely with cling film and made space in the fridge for the pan to fit.
I then pulled the tray back out and filled two bowls and topped them with cream. Yum. Most were sweet and mellow some were tart, others a bit mushy, but when combined together in big spoonfuls, they made a complex and delicious combination. Sweet heavy cream only helped them along and into our mouths.
I also purchased small tart shells from the freezer section of Publix (or was it Winn Dixie?) and set about making a few tiny pies. I made 4 blueberry and 4 peach crumb pies. They were fantastic and I couldn’t help but scarf down one of the blueberries as soon as it cooled. I saved the rest for when Christa came home from work.
The method I found online of only cooking one portion of the berries in sugar, then folding the raw fruit into the hot mixture before immediately tipping into the blind-baked shells proved to be a great way to preserving the fresh picked berry flavors as well as having the benefit of the gel formed by the cooked berries and sugar. It was the best blueberry pie I’d ever had and that’s pretty good considering I used ready made shells. They were pretty good shells. Don’t sneer at ready-made if it keeps from enjoying pie.
I may still only go almost a year between enjoying a taste of blueberries and peaches. The seasons are not long, and unlike oranges, the farms in our area don’t have year long yielding varieties. I’m not concerned; there’s no shortage of tasty eats in the region and we discover new local specialties every month.
I heartily recommend The Southern Peach Company for all your fresh peach needs and the Lyna Berry Farms for all your fresh blueberry need when in season. Both businesses provided fresh, delicious fruits at great prices and with great fun in picking them ourselves. They are perfect places for a yearly tradition in welcoming the summer.
We’ve got our local sources, now and as I’ve said before, absence makes the heart grow fonder. If they were ripe on the trees every day, I’d probably lose my love for them. This way we can relieve that feeling each spring when we enter the warm sun-drenched rows and pluck the first fruit of the season. From the branch to my mouth, sweet and juicy, sticky and warm, little packets of life absorbed into my soul.
Thanks for reading!