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Date: 7/30/2020
EAST LONGMEADOW – John Burney, owner of Meadowbrook Farm in East Longmeadow, is certainly keeping busy. Not only does he grow cabbage, sweet corn, pumpkin, squash and a wide variety of other vegetables and flowers on his 450 acres, Burney is now in the blueberry business.
“It’s all brand new to us,” he said of growing blueberries. One lesson he has learned so far, he joked, is “the birds are becoming big customers.”
Burney, who founded Meadowbrook Farm in 1990, bought the blueberry fields around the corner at 81 Parker St. in the fall of 2019. Formerly Art’s Berry Farm, the blueberries fields seemed like a natural expansion for Burney since he owns acreage across the street where he grows strawberries.
With the berries in full swing, Meadowbrook is harvesting the fruit for sale at the Meadowbrook Farm Stand, but also offering a pick-your-own blueberry and strawberry experience that began July 1.
The former owners of the blueberry farm had divided the land and created a buildable lot with the front 0.67 acres of the property. One of the reasons Burney bought the property was to return the land to agriculture.
“In today’s time, it’s unusual that the land was purchased for agriculture,” Burney said. He has since returned the land to its state Chapter 61A agricultural use designation. “I’m glad we could keep it from development and I intend to keep it as agricultural land.”
Meadowbrook Farm located at 185 Meadowbrook Rd., off Rt. 83, and is open seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. For more information call 525-8588.