They have raised bumper crops of blackberries, but this year might be their last

The Cole boys had been out at sea, living and fishing for a living on their boats, when they decided to cast their fate back home in the red clay of Halifax County in a blackberry patch–a huge, cultivated blackberry patch with berries the size of golf balls. Their father was getting ready to retire from his apple orchard business. “He told us he heard from the grocery stores that blackberries could bring a pretty high dollar,” say Jeff Cole, taking a brief break from bringing berries in from the fields, established now for over 30 years.

“We could see the fishing industry was getting crowded. Instead of buying boats, we took the proceeds and invested it in berries. We had lived on the boats. We didn’t have homes. . . And now we were home,” Jeff explains.

They began in 1986 with an acre of blackberries and an acre of raspberries in the farming community of Vernon Hill. Demand for fresh local produce was growing.  They struck deals with grocery giants, Richfood and Ukrops, bringing in the berries as they ripened. Local. Local. was their calling card. Dealing with some other chain grocery stores posed some problems because they could not always predict when the berries would ripen. “They want to know way in advance, and we couldn’t always make that call,” says Jeff.

The fresh berries sold themselves: Three times as big as the little wild ones, and twice as sweet, without the occasional hard bits. Pretty soon the Cole brothers one acre grew to 15 acres, mostly blackberries.

From our house in Halifax, we would drive up three miles to their farm, a simple white building where they kept produce refrigerated until they could deliver it to a market, at a cool 31 to 34 degrees. My mother made blackberry dumplings, which remains my favorite dessert. Bunched and baked in a packet of dough, the juices would bubble out in sweet little rivulets running in the cracks and cervices of the pastry (See my mother’s recipe at the bottom.) Or you could just mush them up in cream, which turned the most beautiful deep blue purple. Or you could eat them fresh from the basket.

Pretty soon, as the word spread of these luscious giant berries, the Cole brothers were growing trillions of blackberries on 15 acres and selling them to grocery stores and farmers markets directly and through a middleman.

As the Cole brothers moved from fish to berries, they confronted a plethora of issues. They fought all varieties of insects, recruited pickers in a region that is losing population, and coped with devastating weather. In 2016, the temperature in April dropped to 25-26 degrees. They lost the whole crop, $300,000 without insurance to cushion the blow. And now they are thinking they are ready to retire.

The brothers pride themselves on their service, carrying the berries to market on the same day that they are picked and keeping them at a cool 32 degrees. They are transported from the field to the refrigerated house where workers sort and put them in plastic containers until Joey moves them. Some go to a Richmond marketer who delivers them to five different farmers markets in Virginia. Most end up in Jessup or Northern Virginia.

“We are trying to provide our customers with a service. Say they order 750 count. We can get the order through that day. That’s a service. That California can’t do,” explains Joey. Competing with Mexico prices adds to the competition. “When they aren’t there, the market is red hot.”

The pests are a worry at every stage. Going without any pesticide at all would result in massive rotting or failure, Jeff says. The fruit fly, for example, hatches in the berry. Gray mold infects the blossom, June bugs and Japanese beetles add to the enemy list, not to mention gray rust and leaf rust.

They use a modified shift trellis system for support that keeps the berries off the ground and allows them to ripen layer by layer for more precise picking and avoid pests that devour the ripe berries.

The brothers have figured out pest control but seasonal labor is more unpredictable. They have some faithful skilled pickers like Vanessa Venable, who has worked at the Cole Brothers for 32 years. But half the labor pool they relied on has died and the younger generation which relied on farming has moved away. The brothers would like to use migrant labor, but they do not have housing.

The crew of pickers today will work from 6:30-11:30 a.m. They will receive from $12 an hour or $5 a flat. Once a girl picked 54 flats in one day, which netted her over $200 for a morning’s work. The average is 30 trays or $150.   Vanessa gently tugs the berry which drops into her palm and then into a flat. Without a nod to the heat, she glides from bush to bush, selecting the black berries and leaving the red to ripen.

“You’ve got to go fast without damaging the fruit,” explains Jeff.

It has become more difficult to deliver the freshest and best quality to the markets. Joey will return from an overnight run to Richmond for farmers markets, while Jeff tends to the fields. Up since 4 a.m., he has rounded up about 20 pickers who will pull the berries in the morning.  About 80 percent show up. The unpredictability of the workers, coupled with the decrease in laborers, makes for stress.

 “We’re too small to be big and too big to be small,” says Joey.

They have scaled back from 15 acres down to four and say this is their last harvest. They are ready to sell the farm.

The price of berries fails to keep up with the increases in inflation. “We can’t continue to do at the highest level.We’re burning the candle at both ends,” explains Jeff. “I tell you, the world is pushing the small guy out.

“I’m grateful for what’s taken place,” he says. It’s a good life being self-employed, We’d like a few more dollars per flat. . .  But our season’s over.”

RECIPE for Blackberry Dumplings (makes 6)

From my mother Vin Edmunds (Lavinia)

For the pastry:

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter or lard (1 stick)

4 TB water

1 TB sugar

1/2 cup blackberries per dumpling

(Shortcut–use Pepperidge Farms puff pastry for the dough)

Mix flour, sugar, salt, butter, then add water gradually. Make pastry. Gather dough into one ball. Roll out to about 1/4 inch thick. Divide into about six sections. In the middle of each section, add 1/2 to 3/4 cup berries, 1/2 pat butter, 3/4 TB sugar. Gather the dough at the top and twist together at the top. Place in greased cookie sheet or pan. Bake at 450 for ten minutes. Reduce heat and bake another 30 minutes until brown. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream.