Berry Picking on Sauvie Island

I’ve now gone to three different U-Pick berry farms on Sauvie Island near Portland in the last two weeks… Here’s my review:

Sauvie Island Farms

sauvieislandfarms.com
Directions: Cross the bridge to Sauvie Island, & continue straight. Follow up until the road forks and stay left – about a mile up on the right. map

Went here first last week and picked about 8 pounds of Mt. Hood strawberries. Delicious. Best strawberries I’ve ever had. They are not organic but they don’t “spray” (but do apply fungicide to the soil). Strawberries are one of the “if you can’t afford to eat organic, at least just eat organic with these 10 items” so I’m a bit worried, but not enough to not eat them.

I went home and made jam with half of the berries. And I may have eaten the rest over 4 days. Did that make me sick of berries? No! A week later I went back…

Verdict: Great pick

Kruger’s Farm

krugersfarmmarket.com
Directions: Cross the bridge to Sauvie Island and this is the first farm on the right. map

So, Sauvie Island Farms is closed on Sunday but this place is open… My friend who brought me to Sauvie Island Farms said this place kinda sucks – too many tourists who pick the place clean and they’re overpriced. Well… she was dead on right. We spent about an hour here and got nothing but screaming children and teeny picked over berries and sad plants and a whole lot of dust. We left for better pastures.

Verdict: Pass this one up

Columbia Farms

columbiafarmsu-pick.com
Directions: This one is on the other side of the island – near the nude beach. White barn, light green roof. map

They were super nice here. Not sticky sweet “give me money but I hate you” nice, but actually, honestly nice. They re-weighed our plastic boxes and bowls from Kruger’s (we had weighed them there so they could tare them) and we found out that Kruger’s scales were way off. And when I say way off, I mean at least double what these items actually weigh. Columbia Farms had just calibrated their scales this week so they were accurate. No wonder my raspberries were so expensive at Kruger’s. Yikes…

They had 4 types of strawberries when we went – we picked about 9 pounds. Then we went over and picked a bunch of blueberries and raspberries too. 7 pounds of raspberries. We got about 18 pounds of berries for $23? Jam day is today!

Oh, and if you’re near the blueberries and keep hearing a crazy loud angry bird… that’s a recording coming from teeny speakers on the fence. Scared the shit out of me.

Verdict: Best of the lot