Whitesbog Blueberry Festival Celebrates The 100th Anniversary Of The Highbush Blueberry This Weekend

Elizabeth Coleman White was determined to come up with a profitable way to cultivate highbush blueberries.

She spend years experimenting with growing blueberry crops on the land in between the cranberry bogs at Whitesbog. If she succeeded, the July harvest would complement the cranberry harvest in September.

New Jersey farmers had tried to cultivate blueberries in the fields, but failed. By 1916, White and her father had cultivated and produced a blueberry crop and developed ways to cultivate the fruit. Whitesbog would cultivate 90 acres of blueberries at the peak of production, according to Whitesbog.org.

This weekend, locals and blueberry lovers will celebrate the 100th anniversary of that discovery and the 33rd annual Whitesbog Blueberry Festival.

The event will run from 9 a.m. to 5 pm. on both Saturday and Sunday.

Think of it as a country fair, with artists, crafters, vendors, wagon tours, blueberry picking, kids activities, blueberry baked goods, blueberry ice cream and historic house tours.

Whitesbog is part of Brendan T. Byrne State Forest and is listed on both the National and State Registers of Historic Sites. Whitesbog includes the village and the surrounding 3,000 acres of cranberry bogs, blueberry fields, reservoirs, sugar sand roads, and Pine Barrens forests.

It is located at 120 West Whites Bogs Road #34 in Pemberton Township. For more information, call 609-893-4646 or go online at www.whitesbog.org.