Located between Orlando and Clermont, this was a great weekend(s) visit. Not too hot – just yet, but bordering on it. We have driven past this when it was a dirt road with citrus groves and cattle ranching on both sides. Now the road was paved – sweet!
S.H.F. became widely known as the Blueberry Farm but they are so much more. First a bit of their history.
It is family owned & operated with the 3rd and 4th generation’s families the current operators. The family originated from the eastern shores of Viginia at the turn of the twentieth century. Mid-century the youngest son made the bold move to bring his family to central Florida near Lake Apopka. After some time, that area was shut down for farming and they landed in their present location near Clermont, growing landscape trees for Florida.
In 2010 they planted 40 acres of commercially harvested blueberries and in 2014 opened the 120-acre farm for the community. You check-in at the blueberry tent, get your bucket, peruse the map to find the blueberry rows that can be picked and start working, I mean start having fun.
We didn’t choose to pick the blueberries but plenty of families did.
They also rent these wagons.
S.H.F. includes u-pick and harvested blueberries, strawberries, peaches and seasonal vegetables. Fields of sunflowers & zinnias are planted for the Spring and Fall. But again, it is so much more. They have a food market store filled with their branded products.
Blueberry donuts – BTW, we ate one of their hot, fresh ones on our first visit but you could bring some home if you so choose.
A covered pavilion housed a number of eating establishments and plenty of seating underneath.
Here were a few of their offerings:
Also have a small train for the kiddos, and the young at heart.
We visited twice and on our last visit, there was live music playing. Sorry no video or sound-bites. š¦
But where are the veggies?
Here you go………
Along with a few more details concerning what is available one of the days we visited, pricing and informational row signs near the bottom of the photo.
And here’s the gang in action. Our first visit green beans were available to pick. We had them later that night – now that is fresh!
Second visit was the squash and zucchini as seen below.
THIS was what I was the most excited about.
Fields of sunflowers and zinnias are planted for the Spring and Fall.
One day there was no fee to enter this fenced area (due to the prevalent cloud cover) however our second visit was a beautiful sunny day. Sunny days meant $6 dollars was needed whether you were going to cut some or not. Part of the fee went towards a ‘free’ sunflower. After that each sunflower was $2 and the zinnias were $1 each. Still quite a good deal – just saying.
I’m good with paying. Quite a few people were creating video rolls or posting on social media and not actually getting any flowers. It definitely made sense to charge a fee.
Florida is not really known for growing peaches but there is some small pockets of peaches planted commercially using varieties developed for the Florida climate. They were just starting to harvest the fruit on our visit. We purchased a few – man, they were juicy………but still needed to develop their flavor.
There was one last shot that I couldn’t resist. We need more of these signs. š
Going to have some exciting posts coming soon! At least exciting in my book – V.E.R.Y exciting. Stay tuned.
Darden Travels 