MIDDLEBURG – It’s a wonder that Matthew Merrill hasn’t turned into a blueberry.

For instance, he eats his breakfast cereal with frozen blueberries, he snacks on blueberries on the farm and when out in the blueberry rows it’s not uncommon to hear Merrill’s ringtone, ‘Blueberry Hill’ by Fats Domino.

As if scratching an eternal itch, Merrill also happens to be the farm manager for the newly opened Blu-By-U self-pick blueberry farm located at 5571 Long Branch Rd.

The eight-acre farm sports 4,000 individual blueberry bushes of seven different varieties, which allows the farm to open its gates a little earlier than the other self-pick blueberry farms in the area such as Blackberry Hill Farm in Middleburg.

The farm’s cultivator, Tom Morris, purchased the property last Sept. 3. Before that, it was Veterans Farm, an organization formed to help veterans get back into farming. Morris saw the property listed on Craigslist for $180,000 and after convincing his wife, he bought it.

Blu-By-U held its grand opening on April 30, just in time for growing season.

“This is our first picking season so we’re trying to make it through it,” Merrill said. “It looks like we’re doing well. We’ve already sold 15,000 pounds, been open a little over two weeks. We have a long ways to go.”

Picking season usually ends around the first or second week in June. Two weeks into their first picking season and it’s already midseason for Blu-By-U, where the blueberries are at their most plentiful.

“We were told that if we wanted to extend our season we could plant Rabbiteye blueberries,” Merrill said, as Rabbiteye continue growing through August. “I think it’s too hot to pick in August. I don’t know that we’d get the crowd. We’d probably have to do a lot of we-picks ourselves. It would be pretty hot.”

The farm is only open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, which gives the blueberries time to regenerate between the days.

To say the act of picking blueberries is a simple selection process undermines the subtleties of the exercise. The perfect blueberry will be a deep black or luscious purple, plump with taut skin. Another great indicator of its ripeness is if it falls off the vine with a single touch.

With Blu-By-U’s first picking season coming to an end next month, Morris will look at adding new attractions, including fruits and even an outside movie theatre.

“We’ve got a lot of little experiments,” Morris said. “Sell snow cones, popcorn, drinks, waiting to get license to start selling smoothies, just gotta’ get restaurant certification for that. Lots going on out there. Trying to make it like a little event, instead of just blueberries. People come pick, then they hang out, sitting on the porch or whatever just swinging.”

Currently, they have a makeshift sheet acting as an outdoor movie theatre, but they’re planning on turning it into a proper screen soon. They’re also adding chickens for eggs, pot-bellied pigs, and goats according to Merrill, which will complement Reese, the farm’s 10-year-old greying dachshund ‘guard dog.’

However, the farm already has a few attractions already. A 10 by 10 foot sandbox where kids can play, rocking and swinging chairs for people to relax on for as long as they’d like.

Attractions like these are good news for customers like June Mayhan and her daughter who might want to swap the minutia of blueberry picking for the frivolity of a sandbox and a rocking chair.

“We wanted to go blueberry picking and we hadn’t been able to hit some of the ones that have already finished up for the season, so in searching I found that they were open,” Mayhan said, a basket of freshly picked Sweet Crisp blueberries in her hands. “First time here, it’s a nice setup. I’m gonna’ put it on my list to check out every year.”

The farm also co-ops with a local pepper grower and beekeeper who create products made from what they tend to on the property. From the peppers, a sweet peach and Carolina pepper jelly, homemade hot sauces made from habanero, ghost pepper and fruits. From the 25 beehives, fresh honey bottled right on the property.

Also in the works are thornless blackberries adjacent to the blueberry bushes, and Muscadine grapes, which have already begun creeping up the wooden trusses near the farm’s entrance.

The farm uses organic fungicides, pesticides and fertilizers on its plants, and irrigates through a main watering line, as well as, a drip line to ensure that every pot gets the proper amount of water. This all comes together to form a farm in which guests can pluck a blueberry right off the bush and try it.

It costs $4 a pound to pick the blueberries, and $6 a pound if you buy berries that the farm’s volunteers picked themselves.

For Merrill, by the time he gets to the farm in the morning it’s already way past his bedtime. He works the night shift at UF Health hospital of Jacksonville, and comes to the farm after his shift. He’s never one to withhold a laugh or story however, and still finds time to snack on berries, whether on his lawn mower, or while picking.

“My biggest thing is I like walking up and down the rows and talking to people to see how they found out about us, usually when a lot of kids are out here,” Matthew Merrill said. “One little kid came up and said ‘I got 98 blueberries,’ and I’m like ‘oh, wow! That sure looks like 98 to me!’ His little sister says ‘I have four,’ and she had the same amount that he did, so I said ‘well that doesn’t look like four to me.’ They’ll just run up and show you their basket, it’s just so cool.”