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Nursery Tour #1: Weeks Berry Farm (Part 3 of 4)

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Weeks Berry Farm was started back in 1888 as a small peach farm on the banks of the Willamette River. 100 years later Bradley Weeks is continuing five generations of farming. Whether grown in the field for commercial production or to sell to the home gardener, Weeks grows and sells many varieties of asparagus, blackberries, blueberries, currants, elderberries, gooseberries, grapes, herb and vegetable starts, raspberries and strawberries.

“All civilizations have known the best place for a farm is next to a river,” Bradley Weeks said, walking up to a field of currants and gooseberries. 

The downside is that these same fertile fields, nowadays, have been sold to real estate developers for suburban development. Houses built on former farmland has made Weeks lease multiple parcels of land. Weeks owns 45 acres, and farms a total of 160 on checker-boarded lots. 

We walked from parcel to parcel.

A field of raspberries is grown on a two-year cycle. The first year Weeks plants 20,000 plugs. After they’ve grown for season, he mows them down. “We let the suckers go to town. Those turn into 300,000–400,000 plants,” which Weeks sells as bare root, 25 to a bundle. He has more than 3,000 garden centers customers in Canada and the U.S.

Not everything Weeks grows is berries. Everyone strolls over to a neighboring field with rhubarb (“I tell people to scuff the dirt with their heel, drop in the root, and smash it down.”) and asparagus, which is grown from seed that Weeks also harvests for sale. Weeks also grows table grape rootstock.

“Grapes are tricky,” Weeks said. “Soil temps, weather conditions — they all have to be right. Out of 250,000 cuttings, we might get 50,000.” Weeks said 2013 has been near perfect for growing grapes.

Also notable was the round grading system Weeks installed recently. A process previously done by hand, it has allowed him to reduce his workforce by half while increasing production two-fold. 

Farwest attendees should be sure to attend Saturday’s seminar, “Berry School” featuring Weeks and others.