Owner Kathy Dopps weighs a bucket of blueberries for Bryan Wilson of Hermiston after Wilson and his family picked the berries at K&K Blueberries outside of Hermiston.

It’s hot right now, but when winter rolls around, many people will still have a piece of summer within reach: local blueberries.

“I eat them, or freeze them to have throughout the year,” said Ellyn Weeks. “It’s a treat when the weather’s bad, and you think about what it was like picking them in the summer.”

Weeks and others at K&K Blueberries on Thursday were picking fruit with a long-term plan in mind.

“I usually make three visits,” said Mary Burt, a Pendleton resident who has been coming out to the farm for four years. “We usually pick 60 to 70 pounds and can them, make jam, or freeze them for smoothies or muffins.”

Burt and her friend Patty Rasmussen were busy collecting large buckets full of berries around 9:30 a.m., before the heat kicked in. The berry farm, which has 20 acres of bushes on a plot of land south of Hermiston, is open from 6:30 a.m. to noon, and from 5 to 8:30 p.m. on weekdays, from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Saturdays, and 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays.

Kathy Dopps and her husband Ken started the self-serve farm in 2008. Dopps is a teacher and her husband owns Eastern Oregon Mechanical, but the two decided they wanted to do something with the land they had bought.

“We originally had 12 acres, and we ended up planting blueberries,” Dopps said. “This is what we do in the summer.”

The bushes require some off-season maintenance, such as pruning in the winter when the plants are dormant, and putting up flash tape to scare away birds that eat the berries. They also prepare by making sure they have the adequate supplies and maintaining the grounds.

“We really enjoy the family atmosphere,” said Dopps. “It does my heart good when families come out and take pictures in the field — it’s a tradition around July 4. A lot of our goal is to create a place that’s welcoming.”

Dopps enjoys putting up little statues of animals around the farm for children to find, and planting flowers to brighten the place.

Though the Dopps family runs the farm, they hire a few local students to help out each summer.

“The bushes were originally planted by the football team,” she said. “We have strong ties to Hermiston High School and the sports program. When we can, we hire FFA kids who need summertime employment.”

Umatilla County has one other self-serve blueberry farm, Lampson Blueberries in Milton-Freewater. But the relatively small number of those farms in Eastern Oregon draw people from outside the county, too.

Jamie Kile, from Pendleton, was at the farm with some of her family members who made the drive from Baker City.

“We dream of doing this in Baker,” said one of the women. “There’s no U-Pick there.”

Kile, who is the pastry chef at Pendleton’s Prodigal Son Brewery and Pub, said she plans to use the fresh fruit in desserts at the restaurant, and some will probably make their way into sauces and drinks, too.

“I think all said and done, we pick close to 100 pounds — for home and the restaurant,” she said.

K&K blueberries is located at 29555 Minnehaha Road, Hermiston.

–——

Contact Jayati Ramakrishnan at 541-564-4534 or jramakrishnan@eastoregonian.com.