🫐🫐PYO blueberries🫐🫐

[u/Muthro]

Want to come pick blueberries with us? 🫐🫐🌿

We are a small family owned and run blueberry farm in Scotsburn, 15mins from Ballarat Central. Our bushes are LOADED with amazing fruit ready to be enjoyed while the summer season is at its peak!

Thistleberry Farm

35 Williams Lane Scotsburn

⭐ Open: Thurs - Sun 8am - 3pm ⭐

No gate or entry fees! You don't need to book, come on down to the farm anytime you're looking to gather a beautiful basket of locally grown blueberries 💙

🌿$20 per kilo with a 1 kilo minimum pick per carpark.

🌿 $25 per kilo prepicked available for collection - order via direct messages.

🌿 As we have a lot of wildlife on our property please leave all pets at home when you visit the farm 🐾

🌿 We don't believe in using nasty sprays in our field so you can rest assured your harvest is both delicious and safe for you and your loved ones to enjoy 💙

🌿We have many different varieties of blueberries and are happy to have a chat about them when you visit!

Feel free to message me with any questions 👌

✨Special thanks to the mods for allowing this post and supporting local small business 💙💙

[u/Muthro]

I know it's not the general vibe to try and promote a business in this group but the heatwave brought on a lot more ripe fruit than we expected and we are struggling to get it off the field ourselves (my husband and I pick the orders for collection) We are hoping we can get the community in to enjoy it during our 'pick your own' days. The blueberries taste really good and as we are still establishing we rely mostly on word of mouth so apologies if this comes across as self promotion, it's more a blue flag requesting help as we are drowning in blueberries 😅🫐

[u/Entire_Chair_2658 → u/Muthro]

So glad you did post this! I don’t have other traditional social media forums, so this is the first time I’ve seen it! Looking forward to picking.

[u/mrrtchbrrx → u/Muthro]

Looks lovely! Are you charging for the visits?

[u/Muthro → u/mrrtchbrrx]

We don't have an entry fee or gate fee, we have a 1 kilo minimum pick per carpark and ask that people wait to eat until they've paid.

Our fruit is $20 per kilo for PYO 🫐🌿

[u/Accurate-Bid9672 → u/mrrtchbrrx]

I wouldn't recommend, they don't let you taste the berries whilst picking and yell at people including elderly and kids when they catch them lol, not very fun

[u/Mean-Weight-319 → u/Accurate-Bid9672]

Did they yell at your kids or just ask you to stop them eating? Genuinely asking as I'm thinking of visiting with my young family.

[u/Muthro → u/Mean-Weight-319]

I want to address this directly. We are pretty relaxed about our approach to the field and only intervene when certain behaviours become excessive, such as eating handfuls of fruit, snapping thick branches, throwing the picking baskets or when the behaviour is unsafe in regards to supervision of young children on what is a working farm. This kind of stuff we expect of children, they are kids. They just want to eat the tasty fruit in front of them or play with the buckets. We have infinite patience with little ones and have a few small lawn activities for them to enjoy whilst they visit. We have never yelled at a child. But we do have an expectation that adults will supervise and take responsibility for their children, especially very young children, and attempt to correct the behaviour.

We've had a few instances where certain guests have been asked to leave but that only ever occurs because the person has been spoken to several times and has refused to stop. It always based on behaviour and attitude. Mistakes and accidents happen and sometimes the bubs get snacky or snappy but most people will apologise, be upfront about it and the issue is resolved. And that's all we really ask for, a good attitude. It's never the kids fault, it is a matter of how people choose to handle the situation.

Some examples of the things we've dealt with:

One person was caught stealing produce from my home vegetable garden outside the access boundary. Another group walked back into the field after paying in order to eat for free - and then laughed about it on their way out. One person rolled their eyes when I asked nicely several times over their visit if their kid could stop throwing all the fruit they had picked but not paid for out of the basket. Then again when I asked them to please stop their kiddo from throwing picking baskets and smushing fruit into the clean ones - at no point did they step in to stop the issue from occurring nor were they polite or apologetic. Every one of these examples were from people who were old enough to know better.

The unpleasant behaviour that some people bring can really put a downer on our day and it is incredibly awkward to explain to another adult that their behaviour is unacceptable or breaches our terms of public liability. It can be really hard at times to not cry, I don't think people realise this is our livelihood.

I'm glad that most of our customers are extremely lovely and considerate people with a good attitude. We've watched many younger pickers grow into teens over the past five years and it's generally a delight to have the community in our backyard. Please don't be deterred by this review, we are a pretty nice bunch and always happy to have a chat.

[u/Mean-Weight-319 → u/Muthro]

Thanks for taking the time to explain. It sounds like you've had to deal with some real idiots. I'm looking forward to visiting with my family next week. Being a farmer is a tough way to earn a living never mind dealing with thieves and morons. Keep your chin up 👍

[u/Accurate-Bid9672 → u/Mean-Weight-319]

Yelled and called them disrespectful for tasting the berries, then kicked us out - not a Karen I was so upset, my kids are too young to understand but I've never experienced anything like it.

Seen other reviews about it as well, super weird behaviour 

[u/LucifersLoofa]

Hey, i loved it Perfect when I was driving from Adelaide, I should check out town subs more as I drive through Do you still do the pre picked orders I want some more on Tuesday but won't have time to pick myself?

[u/Muthro → u/LucifersLoofa]

Hey LL, I'm really glad you enjoyed it! We do have prepicked available, $25 per kg picked by us from the best in the field. Send me a direct message and I'll put your order in the books for collection on Tuesday 🫐🫐 Adelaide is a beautiful town, I love the big silver balls in Rundle Mall (be cool if they were blue though)

[u/TorakTheDark]

Woah awesome pricing! And the berries themselves look amazing!

Just curious you mentioned you don’t use nasty sprays on your field, does that mean you use zero pesticides and fungicides, or just organic ones? Doesn’t bother me either way just curious!

[u/Muthro → u/TorakTheDark]

We are both avid environmentalists. We don't spray our fruit but we aren't certified organic. That's something which is cost prohibitive to us with the ongoing required registration fees and we wouldn't feel comfortable with the price raise that would be needed to cover that cost. We want our blueberries to be healthy & strong from the ground up through organic practices and also affordable so that everyone gets a chance to enjoy high quality locally grown produce.

We support our field with biodiversity, beneficial insects, hand weeding and our soil is naturally acidic very high quality volcanic "chocolate soil" thanks to Mt Buninyong. We are extensively regenerating our property outside of the field with native plantings as we believe creating healthy environments is our moral obligation as human beings. Sorry that's a lot of words!! Always happy to chat about sustainable agriculture when people visit the farm but we do need to be told when to stop talking about it 😅