By Caitlyn Coleman
"So are blueberries your favorite fruit?" I curiously questioned the retired couple.
"No, I really enjoy raspberries," Shirley said with a smile.
"I love the blueberries!" Dick said enthusiastically, followed by a short chuckle.
It was certainly a delight to travel to the friendly Elsesser residence in the placid town of Acworth. The Elsesser Blueberry Farm has been successfully in business for over thirty years. It has recently been named a New Hampshire Farm of Distinction, stating that the Elsessers project a positive, agricultural image by taking care of the farm, the equipment, and the environment.
Appropriately placed on Derry Hill Road in the beautiful woods of Acworth, stands a small house. Within this house live two of the nicest Acworth citizens with their intriguing stories.
Dick Elsesser came to Acworth from New Jersey in 1951, when he purchased the land as a dairy farm. The farm consisted of twenty milking cows and seven livestock, purebred Jerseys. Dick soon found that dairy farming was not what he wanted to spend his life doing; it was too much work for one man. So, he moved back to New Jersey to finish college. Three years later, during the summer, he came back up to try and sell the land, but no one wanted it.
One day, during that summer, Dick took his brand new, fifteen hundred dollar, three-quarter ton Ford pickup truck to Springfield to find a job; he quickly found one, and decided to stay in Acworth.
It wasn't too long until Dick missed the New Jersey blueberries and decided to become a blueberry farmer. Eventually he met Shirley, who came from Rhode Island. She had moved to Alstead, New Hampshire during the sixties and had worked at Fall Mountain Regional High School for thirteen years as a secretary.
Thirty-three years ago, in 1974, Mr. and Mrs. Elsesser married. Dick had four boys and Shirley had two girls; they were all teenagers. The two certainly had their hands full while starting their blueberry business.
Around 1978, Shirley raised about fifty blueberry bushes in the field out behind their house. The Elsessers started out using these blueberries for family and friends, eventually growing enough to begin selling. Today, those fifty blueberry bushes are the first five rows of plants. Unfortunately, the two messed up when they first started and lost track of where each variety was.
Remembering when they first started pick-your-own, after customers finished picking, Shirley would invite everyone on the porch for blueberry muffins, tea, and coffee. "I always used to say Shirley gave away more muffins, tea, and coffee than she got in money for the blueberries. Nonetheless, we had a good time being a personal business and chatting with customers," Dick said.
As they got money for selling the berries, they saved up to plant more bushes. It takes about six years to get a fully-grown bush; consequently it took quite some time to declare the business to its current size.
"Shirley did all of the work, and I take all of the credit," Mr. Elsesser said. "I would go to work and Shirley would raise our thousands of plants, and now I take the credit."
The process of being a blueberry farmer is certainly a complicated one. There are many aspects that are critical in owning a successful business. There is no time to just sit back and relax. From the beginning of one season to the beginning of the next season, you have to constantly be preparing for the road ahead. Each step is crucial for the next. Most importantly, you must be an extremely dedicated worker.
After the winter, when all of the snow is gone, the Elsessers pick buds off the bushes, to send out for a statistical analysis, which predicts the size of the year's crop based on the condition of the buds. Many bushes might be dead due to the severity of the winter. Blueberry bushes are not very hearty; they can only withstand up to negative twenty degrees Fahrenheit.
Pruning is one of the important procedures needed in growing healthy blueberries. Dick takes a compressor and mounts it on the back of his tractor. There is a long, four-foot pole attached to the compressor that someone holds to do the pruning. On the end of the pole are long clippers used to hook around the bottom of the plant, pull the trigger, and it cuts off the oldest canes. The young canes produce more blueberries, therefore it is necessary to prune one or two of the oldest canes each year. It takes about three people to prune the farm. One person runs the tractor, and one person is on each side of the plant; and they just drive down the row and prune. Using the machine, it takes about twenty-five hours to prune the entire farm, and three people can prune about 1000 plants in a day. Before this pruning device, they used to have to hire ten to twelve people a day to do the pruning, and that got to be quite expensive.
Mulching is also an important process in the blueberry business. The Elsessers used to use a shovel to individually mulch each plant. Then Mr. Elsesser got crafty using his engineering skills to make a mulching machine. He took a sander, put wheels underneath it and attached a tongue to pull it like a trailer. He built a disc that rotates and as you dump buckets of sawdust in the disc, it spits sawdust out under the plant to keep the weeds down.
Another important step is receiving the correct fertilizer for the bushes. Every August they take about 100 leaf samples off the bushes, put them into a bag, and send the bag to the University of New Hampshire to find out what minerals, magnesium, copper, or potash are missing in the plant. The agricultural students at The University of New Hampshire grind up the leaves, analyze what is missing, and then recommend a certain fertilizer mixture to the Elsessers.
Then, the Beaudry Farm in Walpole mixes the perfect fertilizer for the blueberry bushes. Finding the proper fertilizer is very important; it makes a significant difference in the size of the blueberries, and nourishes the bushes.
Because of drought a few years ago, the Elsessers have irrigated the farm. They put in a new well that pumps out thirty-three gallons of water a minute, and can water two acres at a time.
The Elsessers used to call up a guy from Gilmington, New Hampshire to bring beehives to their patch. As the bushes were blooming, ten to twelve beehives were set up in the middle of the patch so that the bees could pollinate the bushes. However, there have not been a lot of bees in the past few years, and it is essential to pollinate the blueberry bushes.
In 2003 the Elsessers decided to buy hives of bumblebees, because bumblebees do a better job of pollinating. The bumblebee works earlier in the morning, works in the wind, and works late at night. They are ten times better workers than a honeybees. The Elsessers bought a few three foot square packages of bumblebees, containing four hives in each package, to do the work. In order for the bumblebees not to die during the winter months, the two must provide a home for them. They will cut stacks of hay late in the season, so the seeds are left in the hay, and lay the stacks out in the field. Mice will come and work their way through the hay, creating little channels to eat the seeds and food in the hay. The bumblebees will then set up homes in the channels and live until the following year.
The harvest season starts at the end of July, around the twenty-fifth and usually goes through September. When their business first opened up to the public, Shirley had to schedule people for picking as they didn't have enough plants. Now the Elsesser Farm owns a mechanical blueberry picker that can pick up to 450 pounds of blueberries an hour! It takes three people to run the machine and they pick for about three hours in the morning. Two or three more people come in to sort and box what was picked that morning. They use an assembly line to process the blueberries commercially. The picked blueberries are placed on a conveyor, where they go through a "blower," and across a "tilt table," then to the inspection table. After the blueberries are sorted they are boxed and shipped to Black River Produce.
Without all of these extremely important tasks and procedures, the blueberries wouldn't survive. Each step is necessary for the next step to take place. Without the right food, water, amount of sunlight, pollination, and the correct structure of the plant, these beautiful plants wouldn't be here.
For pick-your-own blueberries, The Elsesser Farm is open Wednesday through Friday at eight o'clock in the morning until seven o'clock at night, Saturday and Sunday eight o’clock in the morning until six o’clock at night. They also have blackberries and raspberries, but not enough for everyone. There are several varieties of blueberries at the farm. The people's favorite seems to be the Blue Crop, which grow to the size of a nickel or a quarter. The Northlanders are also a big hit because they are very sweet, and great for baking; however they are smaller and harder to pick.
"If you're going to freeze the blueberries, don't thaw them. If you thaw them, they get tough," the two carefully advised.
The Elsesser Farm is closed to the public on Mondays and Tuesdays due to mowing and the general maintenance of the farm. They try to keep the pond looking nice, because it entertains the kids. While the parents are picking berries, the children are catching frogs in their pond. It's a fun, unique place for everyone. They want the customers to feel as if the place is theirs.
The future of The Elsesser Blueberry Farm has great potential, and is very beneficial. There are so many different uses for the blueberries: you can freeze the blueberries, make blueberry jam, bake, pick your own, and pick commercially.
It takes an extremely dedicated worker to accomplish all of this work. Dick and Shirley Elsesser certainly fall under the category of "dedicated workers who love what they do."
ELSESSER'S BLUEBERRY ACRES
Slideshow of Dick & Shirley Elsesser's
Blueberry Acres
Dick & Shirley Elsesser,
Blueberry Acres
283 Derry Hill Road,
Acworth, NH 03601
End of July – September
Wednesday – Friday, 8AM – 7PM
Saturday & Sunday 8AM – 6PM
Please allow plenty of time to pick rather than showing up right before closing time, as the farm closes at the times listed.
Blueberries, raspberries (by appointment), call for picking conditions: 603-835-2259
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THE BLUE PART OF ACWORTH