It’s a berry wonderful world at 80-year-old John A. Kochanek’s home on Mount Angeles Road in Port Angeles.
His 2½-acre farm teems with strawberries, raspberries and loganberries — and blackberries.
He’s particularly proud of his blackberries.
“Seven years ago, I read there were not too many wild blackberries in the area anymore,” says Kochanek.
“So I planted my own domesticated wild blackberries.”
He planted those first blackberry bushes in the fall — and by the next fall he had a nice harvest of delicious berries.
So far this summer, he’s reached his hand through the prickly vines to pick 60 quarts of blackberries.
Deer fence
Kochanek says he enjoys making his own blackberry pies and jam.
While he often gives the fruits of his labor away, he also sells his berries, pies and jams with his daughter-in-law, Cindy Lou Kochanek, at Gertie’s Farmers Market on First Street in Port Angeles on Saturdays.
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The rest of this story appears in the Friday/Saturday Peninsula Daily News. Click on SUBSCRIBE to get the PDN delivered to your home or office.