Photos by Justin Cook | The Roanoke Times

Blueberry buckets wait it be used at Gary and Mary Midkiff's farm. While they also produce a few raspberries, currants, Christmas trees, apples, peaches, vegetables and honeybees, it's the blueberries that keep folks coming up the mountain.

Gary Midkiff stands in his blueberry field at the Bob Pond Blueberry Farm in Giles County. Midkiff and his wife, Mary, bought the farm on Powell Mountain in 1977 and planted six blueberry bushes. Five years later, in 1983, they had blueberries.

Mary and Gary Midkiff's sentiments about gardening hang on the front of their home at the Bob Pond Blueberry Farm in Giles County.

RICH CREEK -- Mary and Gary Midkiff found their thrill on blueberry hill.

Actually, the hill was a mountain -- Giles County's Powell Mountain, a place that 63-year-old Kathleen McNulty calls "close to heaven."

The first time McNulty visited the Midkiffs' Bob Pond Blueberry Farm -- on their 300-acre spread hugging a rocky border of the mountain -- the sky above was overcast with charcoal-colored clouds.

As she plucked fat blueberries and dropped them into a coffee can, McNulty and her family were baptized by those gray billows.

"The water in the clouds came and covered us gently," the Bluefield woman said with an almost biblical reverence.

"It was like being in the Garden of Eden."

That was more than a decade ago. McNulty and her family have been driving up Powell Mountain -- past golden round bales of hay and soldierly rows of Christmas trees -- to worship at the Bob Pond Blueberry Farm ever since.

"It's heaven-sent to us," McNulty said, noting that the blueberry farm is one place she can escape the variety of health problems that have plagued her life.

Because of her arthritis and a bad back, she's unable to stoop for picking. The Midkiffs' Northern highbush plants reach past her waist.

"I can stand there and pick blueberries to my heart's content," she said.

And after the picking is done, McNulty said, she's able to enjoy the fruits of her labor for a long, long time.

"I'm diabetic," she explained. "They become my candy. I put them in the freezer and eat them anytime I want something sweet.

"I make a really good blueberry pound cake," she added. "It's delicious. But fattening. You have to be careful."

Married ... with blueberries

Mary and Gary Midkiff bought the farm on Powell Mountain in 1977 and planted six blueberry bushes.

Five years later, in 1983, they had blueberries.

Gary Midkiff remembers that year. It was the year he was putting a roof on the house he built at the farm, a cozy one-story home with wood siding and a garden pond where Mary Midkiff planted fragrant lavender, wild geraniums, climbing roses and carnivorous pitcher plants.

The first blueberries had finally come in, Gary Midkiff recalled, and the house was coming together.

A visitor showed up on his doorstep, looking for fence rails. She asked whether Midkiff had any.

"I said, 'No, but I got blueberries,' " Midkiff recalled. "She said, 'I don't care nothing about blueberries.' But an hour later, here she came back with her mother."

Mother and daughter proceeded to pick. And when they left Powell Mountain with their haul, they told others about the fine blueberries that the Midkiffs had cultivated.

"It was word of mouth," Gary Midkiff said, that started Bob Pond Blueberry Farm.

Named for a natural pond found on the land and the original owner of the property, a fellow by the name of Bob Wiley, Midkiff said Bob Pond is referenced in deeds dating back to the 1700s.

"At one time," he said, "there was a plantation here with tobacco."

But the Midkiffs -- married 46 years now with three children and four grandchildren -- have found a life at Bob Pond raising blueberries. While they also produce a few raspberries, currants, Christmas trees, apples, peaches, vegetables and honeybees, it's the blueberries that keep folks coming up the mountain.

After the first six blueberry bushes did so well, Mary Midkiff said, "we just kept adding to them."

"At one time," Gary Midkiff chimed in, "we had 13,000. We're way down from what we did have."

"Way down" means approximately 10,000 blueberry bushes still cover a large chunk of acreage. The Midkiffs have lots of varieties that ripen at different intervals so they have blueberries from late June through September. They also sell the plants for those who want to grow their own.

Sometimes, Mary Midkiff isn't so happy with the late-blooming varieties.

"Mary says she'll kill me if I plant another rabbit eye," Gary Midkiff said. "They bloom later than the others, but it takes many more hot days to bring the fruit in."

While the couple enjoy meeting the people who flock to their blueberries with banging buckets and squealing children, the daylight-to-dark picking days can be long ones for Mary Midkiff, 65, and Gary Midkiff, 70.

"People come to pick blueberries from all over," Mary Midkiff said. "It's surprising. It really is. We don't have any trouble getting them picked. Never have."

What people don't pick, deer do.

And birds. And bears.

"If a deer horns a blueberry bush, he's probably pretty well killed it," Gary Midkiff said. "Bears ain't too popular here, either. One of them tore the gutters off the shop getting into the garbage cans."

"I came face-to-face with that bear," Mary Midkiff added, "right here in the shop."

Said her husband: "I didn't know gray hair could move that fast."

Picking and giving

Most of the blueberries reach their peak the second week of July. This year's crop, the Midkiffs said, isn't a bounty because of drought conditions but it's a heck of a lot better than last year's.

"Out of all the time we've been here, we've only had one year that we had no berries," Mary Midkiff said. "That was last year. The Easter freeze killed everything. There wasn't a one."

McNulty said she and her family missed the trip to Bob Pond last year.

"We were frozen out," she said. "This year it will be twice as good."

McNulty was so eager for picking time to start, she sent the Midkiffs an e-mail last month.

"It's a trip we always look forward to each year," she wrote. "When we asked our daughter what she wanted for this year's birthday celebration on May 23, she said, 'Let's just wait and celebrate at Bob Pond when we go to pick berries. We can have another picnic like we used to do.' It's nice to know that at the tender age of 33, she remembers the special times we shared at your place."

Back in 1983, Gary Midkiff said, visitors could pick berries for 25 cents a pound. Soon, he had to raise the price to 40 cents. This year, the going rate is $1.75 a pound.

"Mary thinks we ought to weigh the people," he joked. "We used to have some folks from Rich Creek come up, go out for an hour, come back and say, 'Well, we can't find no berries.' "

McNulty admits that she and her family can't help but munch on a few during the picking process.

"But after eating several, we bring the rest home," she said.

Over the years, the Midkiffs said, customers like McNulty have become dear to them.

They look forward each summer to seeing Jimmy Lester, the 80-year-old man who drives all the way from Rural Retreat to visit Bob Pond.

"He doesn't come just once," Gary Midkiff said. "He comes several times a year."

"And he doesn't even use the blueberries," Mary Midkiff added. "He just picks to give away."

Fountain of youth?

A study done by Tufts University professor James Joseph in 1999 showed that a diet rich in blueberries reversed age-related declines in coordination and motor skills.

The professor fed four groups of rats a normal diet, but three of the groups were also given either strawberry, spinach or blueberry extracts. The rats that ate the blueberries showed the most improvement, prompting Joseph to speculate that the blueberries' flavonoids -- phytochemicals that affect cell membranes -- caused the improvement.

Other studies have shown blueberries to be one of the best fruits at improving urinary tract function, improving eyesight, reducing the risk of heart disease and helping memory performance.

Because they're rich in antioxidants, blueberries are lauded for strengthening the body's natural defenses and even wrinkle-proofing the skin.

Best of all, perhaps, is the fact that blueberries are among the lowest calorie foods in a healthful diet and are high in fiber. A half cup of blueberries provides only 40 calories but as much fiber as you'll find in a slice of whole wheat bread.

Blueberry lore galore

Ronald Prior, a Tufts University professor and the scientist who championed the secret power of blueberries, once got called to testify at a murder trial in Maryland because the defendant allegedly had consumed great quantities of blueberry root tea -- and alcohol -- just before the murder.

Prior's research led him to Peter Smith's "The Indian Doctor's Dispensary," a book last printed in 1901, where he found that Smith called blueberry root "the best of all camp medicines, used for everything from ague (fever) to childbirth, cholera, colic, cramps, epilepsy, hysteria, spasms, uretal inflammation and hiccups."

Northeastern American Indians revered blueberries, calling them "star berries" because the blossom end of each berry forms the shape of a perfect five-point star. They believed the Great Spirit sent the star berries to relieve children's hunger during famine. They also used blueberries for medicine and dye.

The Pilgrims learned from the Wampanoag how to gather blueberries, dry them in the sun and store them for winter. The berries became an important food source and were later canned.

Blueberries are native to North America, the world's leading producer of the fruit. Currently, 90 percent of the world's blueberries are produced here.