The Plant City farm owned by Wayne Glover and his partners Stan Glover and Jorge Salmeron doesn’t look like a regular farm. Acre after acre is covered in neat rows of big blue half-barrels, each cradling a blueberry bush.

The record-breaking January freeze took out some of his neighbors’ strawberries, but Glover was lucky. The bushes are growing slowly but show promise of a bountiful crop. “The freeze kept the plants … well …still,” he said. “It’s like they were saying ‘it’s not spring yet! It’s not spring yet!’”

Glover predicts the cool spell will produce more berries than usual, but they will be late in maturing. “Blueberries like the cool weather, so I’m seeing more of them. They’re just taking their time,” he said. In a typical season, Glover would be harvesting now. “You really want to pick the most berries between March 20 and April 20,” he said. “This year, we’ll probably be a couple of weeks behind. Then we get to work.”

Blueberry picking is labor intense, and Florida producers fit into a narrow market window between crops from Chile and Georgia, so no one will be getting much sleep once picking begins.

BACKGROUND IN AGRICULTURE, BUT NOT REALLY

Wayne Glover and sister-in-law Debbie among Wayne's blueberry barrels.

But Glover was busy at the time. He taught school for 35 years until retiring in 2003, when he finally began his farming career. “I had a former student who said he knew all about blueberries. To be honest, I had never seen one grow,” Glover said. He took the leap with the student, Salmeron, and Glover’s brother Stanley, and that began the next phase of his life.

BARRELS VERSUS TRENCHES

They planted blueberries in barrel containers on one acre and did well, so each year they expanded. The three partners now grow 10 acres on Wayne Glover’s property and 10 acres on Stanley Glover’s land. 

Why containers? “We didn’t know any other way to grow them. A friend around the corner was growing about an acre in containers at the time, and so was a friend of hers in Valrico. So I thought that was the only way to grow them. It’s a good way, but it’s expensive.”

Over three years, Glover accumulated thousands of barrels. “I’d drive down the road and spot some behind a store, so I’d go in and ask how many barrels they had,” said Glover. “Finally, we found a company in Winter Haven that imported apple juice from Brazil in barrels and we bought them by the truckload.”

What’s more, Glover doesn’t plant his berries in soil. He uses pine bark for its acidic content.

Today, Glover grows berries in 19,200 barrels. “I know exactly how many there are because once a week we have to look at every one of them to see if the water is running,” he said. “We use an irrigation system with microjets. If one stops up, in a week’s time you’ve got a dead plant.”

Stanley Glover, his wife Debbie and daughter Allison grow their 10 acres of blueberries differently – in trenches, also using pine bark as a planting medium. “We dug trenches over there, just to see how well that system would work. Turns out it worked fine,” Wayne Glover said. He plans to adopt the trench system for part of his operation in the future.

The brothers produce seven varieties developed by University of Florida scientists. After starting with two older varieties, they realized that newer ones were more compatible with Central Florida growing conditions. “They have some now that are easier to grow and produce a lot heavier than the old varieties,” said Glover. Because the weather is different in Plant City than it is in Gainesville, it takes some trial and error to see which varieties are best for that region.

DIVISION OF RESPONSIBILITIES

Glover uses a microjet system to irrigate each plant.

“Jorge knows how to hire workers. His father is a crew leader,” said Glover. “Jorge’s father goes through the field and says, ‘Tomorrow you need 60 workers.’ In the morning, 60 workers are here. So we’ve been fortunate.” They’re also fortunate because the labor pool is available when they need them. “We piggyback on strawberries. That season ends at about the same time ours starts.”

The Glovers use Wishnatzki Farms as their broker. “Our father grew produce and sold it to Gary Wishnatzki’s grandfather. So it seemed automatic that when we started to grow blueberries, we went to see Gary,” Glover said. The Wishnatzki facility is only five minutes away. The Glovers are building a cooling building to improve the quality and shelf life of the berries. “When our berries are picked, they’ll be chilled immediately. Then within five or 10 minutes, they’ll be in Wishnatzki’s coolers.”

Glover’s fresh berries are sold under the Wish Farms brand in supermarkets in the northeastern United States. They may also be sold in Canada this year.

AND THEN THERE’S THE U-PICK OPERATION

With the steep fall-off in price after Florida blueberries’ brief market window, the Glovers decided the best way to sell the remaining crop was to open the farm to the public. “It’s really popular. People come in from Orlando, Tampa-St. Pete, even from out of state to pick our berries,” said Glover. Normally the U-pick season is the last two weeks in May but will likely be later this year. After U-pick concludes, they trim the plants down to about 24 inches so blueberries will produce on new growth. “We cut everything back and start fertilizing and watering again,” Glover said.

Learn more about this year’s U-pick season here.

Last year, the Glovers picked 21 tons -- 3,000 flats -- of blueberries. “That’s a lot, because we only picked off of about five and a half acres,” Glover said. “We constantly have some coming out and some going in. We replant all the time, trying new methods and new varieties.”

TIME FOR R & R

Blueberry farming isn’t all hard work. Once the last berries are picked, it’s time to pack. The Glovers are travelers. “I always said that when I retired, I would travel six months a year. And this business will almost let me do that,” said Glover. “After the season, you trim it, water it, and let the timers do the work.” The partners take turns running away, as Glover puts it. Stanley’s family heads to the beach first, and then Wayne heads off to his favorite spots – Costa Rica in the winter and Europe in the fall. This year, the whole family is planning a Caribbean cruise, and Wayne will head to Alaska in the summer.

They also plan a trip to Michigan to look for equipment for the new packinghouse and to learn more from their northern counterparts.

Plus, there’s a possible new venture in the works – wine. “Stanley and Debbie are really good wine-makers,” said Wayne Glover. “We may put in a winery after they retire. Because you have a lot ‘grade-outs’ in blueberries, we usually make a lot of jam and that kind of thing. So a winery might be a good step. We’ve tasted a lot blueberry wines and they’re good,” said Glover. “We’ll have to see.”