Blu-By-U Farm is located at 5571 Long Branch Road Jacksonville, FL 32234. It is a Jacksonville address but is actually located in Clay County. Our post office is Baldwin, with Maxville just at the end of the road.
We purchased the farm in August 2015 off Craigslist. It was formerly known as Veterans Farm, which was started in 2010 with the Blueberry bushes in 20 gallon containers and wide rows so the Veterans could maintain them easier in their wheelchairs and scooters.
We wanted to keep the Farm very socially conscious and strive to continue and create a very peaceful and family fun atmosphere for all our pickers and other guests who just want to come out and set a spell.
The original farm was 8 acres surrounded by an 8ft tall fence around the perimeter to keep the deer and other animals out, with the blueberry field on 3 acres, a 1/4 acre pond, two 70ft long greenhouses and two deep wells for irrigation. Blu-By-U Blueberry Farm opens every year during Spring April/May for about 4 to 5 weeks, so anybody can come and pick their own blueberries and strawberries.
The building we refer to as our Country Store was originally a house built between 1870 and 1905 and actually moved in the 1950’s about two miles to be where it is today. As homage to its history the rafters are made out of round poles and rough cut wood and rectangular headed nails, the sash windows open with ropes and weights to raise and lower them. Our Country Store sells locally made soy candles and goats milk soap bars provided by Inspired by Light which works with Teen Challenge. We have Blueberry recipe books, snacks and drinks for sale. We also sell local honey from Apiaries located on the Westside of Jacksonville. They also bring their Bees out to the farm for pollination before our picking season.
Our first season was April 30 - May 28 2016, we had a wonderful first season with 700 likes on Facebook before we even opened the gates. The harvest was 2,500 pounds of Blueberries, we were happy that it went so smooth with 300 guests every Saturday and mommy and me groups and others through the week.
Our second season in Spring of 2017 was not as great, a late freeze on March 15th, 2017 caught us by suprise and took most of our berries as well as those of many other Blueberry Farms in Florida and Georgia, however we were able to open 2 weeks earlier than the previous year, opening on April 15th, 2017 (which was Easter Saturday) the harvest was about 500 pounds that second year, we were sad and so were our pickers, we were only open 2 weeks.
November 2018 we opened the Two by Two petting zoo including ducks and chickens, goats, Jerusalem donkeys and Alpacas. We had our first baby goat born at Two By Two on February 15, 2020.
In 2019 our Blueberry U-Pick season was a great season we hosted almost 1,000 pickers on our opening day, running out of parking, and the food trucks sold out of most of their food. We acquired a hydroponics system to expand the farm to grow up to 12,000 strawberry plants, as well as the blueberries.
All farms had their struggles in 2020 with the Covid-19 pandemic but we were able to manage by using a reservation system, with time slots to pick blueberries, using signup genius. We were able to plant 3,000 Strawberry plants in our hydroponics system, The farm had its first Fall Festival on Oct. 31 2020 which had 40 vendors, live music, food trucks, fishing and a petting zoo.
To start off 2021, the farm hosted its first Spring Festival on Easter weekend which was also a huge success. The sign up for slots was a huge success in 2020 so we continued to issue picking by reservation slots only. We did experience some no shows which wasn’t fair on our wonderful family of return pickers who also enjoyed the peacefulness of our farm. We discovered that strawberries were less robust than the blueberries and we didn’t always have a harvest to pick at the same time as the blueberries.
Today, we are pleased to announce we continue to grow in harvest and services.
Our U-Pick Farm is now 20 acres, with a newly erected pole barn, a growing petting zoo, a 50 x 70 shaded picnic area connected to the Country Store which has a sandbox, swings, corn hole game, a volleyball net and horse shoes.. We have deer, with a Buck and 6 Does, and the fishing pond. We have regular slots for the Spring and Fall Festivals, and an opportunity to hire the farm for private events, like birthday parties (adult and childrens). An onsite Pastor for weddings, vow renewals, and other worship services. A much improved parking and a Facebook page with over 7,000 followers. We continue to enhance our guest experiences and this year we are launching a professionally developed website.
We base our great successes on our basic concept of being a socially conscious organization. As we expand in the future will not lose sight or focus of that vison and mission. Now that we have 20 acres the years of 2023 and beyond will see some reorganization of facilities and introductions of new ones. We don’t wish to worry our existing family of pickers and guests, that return year after year, we promise we will not change what they love about being part of Blu-By-U Farm; and we will all get a say in any of our improvements and expansion.
We intend to move parking and improve the parking experience. We want to introduce some RV parking and other fixed overnight accommodation. We will definitely expand our harvest so that those who have come year after year will have plenty to pick. We will be introducing a new expanded events field and significantly expanding our ‘out of picking season' activities, more movie nights, live music concerts, festivals and functions, like easter egg hunts, pumpkin patch, extended Fall, Halloween and Christmas festivities. A new farm to table resaurant and other dinning opportunities
With an onsite Farm & Events Manager, in Pastor Kelly and his wife, we will be expanding our christian activities with, worship services, weddings, vow renewals, fellowship breakfasts and dinners and much much more.