In 2012, I was living in the Saints Streets of Lafayette, Louisiana while I attended grad school. Although grad school did not leave me with much free time, I would find myself gardening when time allowed. We did not have a very large yard, to begin with, but before I knew it there was very little grass to be found and a very extensive garden.
Fifteen 30ft rows in the back yard and four large, mainly flower, beds in front, the garden was extremely fruitful, Almost everything I planted grew beyond what I was able to consume, allowing me to share fruits and vegetables with everyone around me. It was around this time, my stepfather, Dr. Michael Melancon, asked me if I would be interested in developing the family land in Carencro, Louisiana. Being I had recently run out of space in my garden I said, ‘Sure, let's do it!’
I was enrolled in an engineering project management course, and our student group semester project was olive oil production in Louisiana. There are not many olive trees in Louisiana and we decided we could develop the market, as the U.S.
imports 99% of its olive oil. This seemed like a fantastic idea, so we decided to start with twenty olive trees.
Dr. Mike bought a tractor and we both discovered a new passion for riding around and developing the land.
Although you’re just sitting and riding around when you look back and see the amount of work you've
accomplished, it is an incredibly gratifying experience. Dr. Mike came to me with a unique family-oriented
vision, one of the whole family coming together and picking olives every year.
Well, we were less than prepared for the late freeze that came with the following winter and only three of the olive
trees survived. Although the olives didn’t work out we figured that blueberries were a much better option. Blueberries
did not require pressing the oil or marinating, you can just eat them right off the bush. Also, everybody loves blueberries.
In March of 2014, I attended a nursery festival in Forest Hill, Louisiana, and came home with 100 blueberry bushes. Later that summer we planted them, and they all survived. Since then we have planted another 200 blueberry bushes, resulting in a half-acre of blueberries on a twenty-eight-acre plot.
Why BluesBerry Fields?
My dad was in a blues band, Road Doc Revue, that played all over Louisiana. I figured, what could be more complementary to picking blueberries than listening to blues?
There is also that Beetles song about the strawberries ...