It is more important to blog about apples now because this topic is time sensitive, you see. So, I am taking a one day intermission from the Atlanta series to blog about the apple season starting about this time of the year.

We know of a U-Pick in Abbotsford called Apple Barn. They have a website at http://applebarn.ca. The apple picking seasons started on Saturday last week and will last until mid to late October. If you had not experience picking your own apples before, you should plan to make your way there. It is great fun.

When we were there last weekend, only the Gala apples were opened for picking. Most of the other varieties will be available for picking starting next weekend. This was OK since my favourite apple is Gala anyway.

Since this was the first week and only Gala was available, there were not many people during this weekend. I think it would get a lot more busier starting next week. A few close family friends of ours went there early (the orchard opens at 10AM last weekend) and had practically the entire orchard to ourselves.

For the Gala apples, it costs $6 for 10lb. They don’t weigh what you pick. As long as you could fit all the apples in the 10lb bag, and that the handles touches, it’ll be $6. They also have 20lb bags which costs $10 but that was way too much for our small family. Next week, when they open to more varieties, it will costs a bit more. Check their website for their pricing. I figured that u-pick apples is about half the cost of what you pay for in the supermarkets.

Besides the fun of picking apples, the big deal about u-picks is that you get really fresh apples. They were extremely crunchy and gives a loud crunch when bitten into. I am not sure if it is OK to eat a few while you pick but I had one. Bring along some water to wash the apples before you eat them. I am not sure what pesticides are used if any.

You see the apple above I took? Well, there are worms in the one I had. I did not realize it until later. Oh … I am not sure if I had swallowed it!

Some of the Galas were really small. Vince love them but I did not try it. I had a few in the bag somewhere … will try it tomorrow. Our boys does not like apples and what that means is that between Suanne and I, we’ll have to finish them off before they go bad. 5 lbs each. Oh …

We’re not supposed to pick Honeycrisps until next week. Well, I took one nice big one and stuff it right into the middle of the bag. It was great … you should go for them when they open the Honeycrisps for picking next week. I am sure that they’ll be picked cleaned out if you wait another week or so.

If you have nothing planned for the weekend the next couple of weeks, go and make a trip to Apple Barn. Tell them you found them through http://chowtimes.com.

Back to regular programming tomorrow …

There is a bumper crop of blackberries this year in Vancouver. This has been brought about by lots of rain in June followed by hot, dry weather after, creating ideal condition.

Blackberry shrubs are found all over the lower mainland — roadsides, fencelines, stream banks, railway tracks — and they grow just about anywhere.

I bike to work on most days in summer. Along the bike route there are also a lot of blackberry shrubs. These shrubs I find along the route are largely untouched because unless you are on the route you will not know they are there.

There are two spots that I find a lot of unpicked blackberry shrubs. The first is the Kent Bike Route near Ontario St in Vancouver. The shrubs is parallel to the railway tracks. If you walk over to the side on the railway, you get even more blackberries.

The other secret spot is the shrubs under the Oak St Bridge in Richmond (see picture below). If you bike between Richmond and Vancouver across the Oak St Bridge, you will see the untouched shrubs.

If you drive, you can turn off Hwy 99 north bound just before getting on the bridge. Drive round under the bridge and you’ll see them shrubs. (Polly, you should check this out on this Google Map. Amanda and Anna would love this)

The blackberries are at various stages of ripening. The pictures here were taken about 4 days ago. I think by now there are even more ripe ones.

One thing though, the blackberry shrubs are very hardy plants and have very sharp spines. If you really want to pick a lot of them, you bring something to cut the long stems and wear gloves so that you don’t get cut by the sharp thorns. You just need to cut away a few stems and you’ll be able to get to the better ones in the middle of the shrub.

Polly invited us to the U-Pick Blueberries last weekend. We have never been to pick blueberries before and never knew where the U-Picks were; even though there are a lot of blueberry farms all over Richmond.

Polly found one on 11071 Blundell Rd. Coincidentally the owner of the farm were from Malaysia too. We found it spooky when another customer in the farm on that day were also from Malaysia. You can always spot a Malaysian accent with their unique version of English — I call it Manglish!

This farm does not sell blueberries at all because he apparently had a lot of orders. He told us that he had already orders for batches of 50lbs or 100lbs that he can hardly fulfill!

Blueberries are native to North America and Eastern Asia. They grow on shrubs as high as 8 ft tall. The blueberry season typically runs from May to October every year.

The fruit are pale-greenish at first, then turns redish-purple before ripening and turning blue or dark purple.

The blueberries in this farm are organic. The organic blueberries costs $1.75 per pound for u-pick. This is much cheaper than buying it from the stores which could cost up to $3 per pound or $5 for organic ones. The owner of the farm can pick to order for $2.25/lb.

This is an old farm where the shrubs were planted very close to one another. It was difficult getting through some part. We were wearing shorts and short sleeved Ts. We ended with quite a bit of scratches.

We only managed to pick less than 2 lbs after 1 hour. It was hard work but fun. During that time the four of us took to pick 2lbs, the owner were out also picking. He picked about 20lbs … alone!

The highlight of our trip to Kelowna is picking cherries. On the first day we were there we went to a cherry farm on Westbank. We had been to this farm before but were pleasantly surprised at the abundance newly ripe cherries on the trees.

Picking cherries is simple. You need to pick it with the stems on. This will keep the cherries fresh longer. The man in charge of the farm showed us how best to pick cherries — basically, you push the stem up and snap off the stem.

The cherries in the Westbank farm is free of pesticides but is a bit small compared to larger ones we see in the stores. They a bit soft and not crunchy.

You really need to climb ladders to get to the better fruit. The lower ones were gone very fast. We need to make sure that the ladder is stable. In all, we picked about 11 lbs of cherries from the Westbank farm. Each lb costs $1.25.

On the second day, we drive south of Kelowna to the end of Lakeshore Rd. There are a few popular farms there. These u-pick farms are more organized and the cherries were a class better than the ones in Westbank — they are bigger and crunchier. However, this farm uses pesticides.

The cherries in this farm is a bit more expensive at $1.50 per pound. We picked more this time — 15 pounds. Ha ha ha … it was so easy to pick but not we have to figure out how to eat all 26 pounds of cherries! :-)

There was this family we saw who picked 82 lbs! So, 26 lbs is not so bad after all, right?

Suanne is looking a recipes to make use of the cherries. She’ll blog about it the next few days. At the meantime, do you have any idea what we can do with so much cherries?

Here is a few shots around Kelowna we took. We had a good time just walking along the park and seawall.

“The Sails” is the centre point of Kelowna.

The seawall walk is very well maintained and very beautiful. Green on one side and blue water on the other.

We also saw some upscale apartments along the lake. Instead of a cars parked in front of the apartments, they have boats instead.

We also went up Knox Mountain which overlooked the entire Kelowna valley. It was a beautiful sight as we just sat and waited till the sun goes down.

June is the season for strawberries in Vancouver. Nothing beats freshly picked strawberries from the farm. Arkensen loves strawberries and who can resist such sweet and juicy berries.

Strawberry is small plant of the rose family. Strawberries are not really “berries” or fruit in the botanical sense. The real fruit of the strawberry is the strawberry seeds on the outside of the strawberry or properly called “achenes”. The berry is actually the enlarged receptacle and is not reproductive material. That’s why strawberry has to be picked at full ripeness because they cant ripen once picked.

We live very near to some farm lands and the sign for U-Pick Strawberries was up last week.

The U-Pick farm was opened on last Saturday. I went there around 10:00 a.m. and there were a crowd already.

The strawberries here are smaller but much sweeter than those imported from the United States which are commonly found in the groceries stores. Morever, the labour of picking the berries makes them much sweeter.

I picked a full bucket of strawberries that morning.

It only costs $1 for a pound and my full bucket costs $3.50.

I went back to the farm on Tuesday morning and it was closed already. I should have picked more on that day.