Nearly 60 years ago, a small, 12-acre blueberry farm grew just a few miles off the shore of Lake Michigan. Of the farm’s frequent visitors was a Dominican nun from Grand Rapids, MI—about an hour’s drive away from the farm in South Haven. The farmer had allowed Sister Ernestine free reign on the blueberries after his harvest, letting her pick the remaining berries to take back to her convent. But unfortunately, the blueberry farmer came to the decision to sell his farm, and the nun couldn’t stand to see the farm she’d grown to enjoy go.

“And the story goes that Sister Ernestine happened to tell my grandmother about a blueberry farm for sale. My dad was an electrician with zero farming knowledge, but she must have been very convincing because in 1958 my parents purchased what is now DeGrandchamp Farms,” says Bob DeGrandchamp. After years of strictly blueberry farming, Bob’s father Vincent wondered how else he could utilize his land. “My father toured the farms at Ocean Spray headquarters and decided that adding cranberries to the farm would be a good fit,” explains Bob.

The DeGrandchamp family maintains 42 acres of cranberries, almost 200 acres of blueberries, and a handful of acres of container-grown nursery stock and greenhouses. Naturally, Vincent DeGrandchamp and his wife Beatrice passed the farm on to their children: daughter Judy Johnson manages the office and retail, Bob maintains cranberry care and harvesting, Joe oversees blueberries, and Mike manages the nursery/greenhouse operations. It continues to be an entirely family-run operation, giving each of the 11 grandchildren the opportunity for a hands-on experience from picking fruit to managing the farm’s website and social media accounts.

Because of the amount of work already at hand on the farm, being involved with the Ocean Spray Cooperative with other cranberry growers has helped the DeGrandchamps tremendously. Belonging to the cooperative means resources are more readily available and there is less pressure to focus on marketing, which allows the family to concentrate on growing high-quality fruit.

The DeGrandchamps’ first cranberry harvest certainly helped them understand the nuances of the tiny, tart red fruit. “You should have seen us gingerly stepping through the bog. We’re accustomed to delicate blueberries that bruise easily…but cranberries, they’re a tough little fruit,” says Bob.

Blueberry harvest season occurs in phases over the course of summer, requiring a team of 175-200 people to pick the fruit by hand and with harvesters. With just a four-week lapse between the end of blueberry season and the start of the cranberry harvest, the DeGrandchamps’ double berry farm keeps them hands-on all summer till Labor Day weekend. “There are few trips to the beach when fruit needs to be harvested, but my father was smart,” says Bob. “Growing cranberries allows us to work a little bit longer in the fall and it requires much less hands-on labor.” 

Right now during spring, cranberry buds have formed and some blueberries are about the size of a pea. The farm’s blueberry plants have just finished pollination using a combination of rented bee colonies and natural pollinators. Joe DeGrandchamp will prune the blueberry bushes to promote new growth, especially after a chillier than usual winter.

In the first week of July, the first “king” blueberries at the tip of the cluster will be plump, deep blue and ready for picking. From there, the next round of blueberries will be ready 7-10 days later and continue for three to four pickings. It makes for a nice, steady flow during harvest season—for both the DeGrandchamps and their tourists. “It’s funny how many generations have come to visit. People who came to pick blueberries as kids are now bringing their own children,” says Bob. “It’s what you do in the summer: you come to the beach, eat Sherman’s ice cream and pick blueberries.”

And after all these years, the DeGrandchamp family has yet to tire of their yearly harvest.

“There’s nothing like a bowlful of fresh-picked blueberries with a spoonful of sour cream and a spoonful of brown sugar. It’s the easiest, simplest recipe and so, so good.”