Herndon Hills Farm

Small family farm, open 7am-​noon Wednesdays and Saturdays only. Go up to desk, pick up a plastic bag (bucket optional, you can also bring your own bucket) and start picking. Facing the house, blackberries and grapes on the left, blueberries on the right.
Summer: blackberries ($ 4/​lb) and blueberries ($ 3/​lb). Blackberries run out before 8am on Wednesdays and before 7:30am on Saturdays. In my opinion, skip the blackberries — they are sometimes a hit or miss and you have to get up pretty damn early before they’re all gone.
AYCE in the fields, essentially. Taste the fruit on the bushes before you pick — some can sweeter, denser, juicier, thicker-​skinned, etc. Bugs aren’t an issue, though there might be a spiderweb on ¹⁄₅₀ bushes. Young bushes tend to yield tarter berrier, though not always the case. Pick bigger, bluer, and look at the «star» shape on the blueberry — the bigger the diameter of the star, the better it will probably be.
Fall: white grapes and muscadines.
It’s always crowded. Bring cash (esp. $ 1 bills, I think the Herndon family will appreciate that). Be VERY careful turning into the farm — small narrow path with ditches. Wear sunscreen, light clothes, maybe bring cold iced water bottle (it gets hot and muggy before 8am here!!). Great place for kids and family bonding. Or picking 2 pounds of blueberries and eating it all yourself ;)

I’ve only been once, but I can guarantee we’ll be back! The process couldn’t be simpler or more pleasant: go to the owner’s garage, say «Hi» and pick up a bucket lined with a large plastic bag. Go out and pick to your heart’s content then come back and pay for your whole mess of hand-​picked berries for way less than grocery store prices.
Tasty blueberries and blackberries fresh from the bush in the middle of summer. We’ll be back for Muscadine grapes!

If you’re a locavore and a serious North Carolina foodie, and you’ve never had a muscadine or scuppernong grape, then you’re basically an epic failure. Just kidding… sort of… Muscadines are an acquired taste. When I first had them I didn’t like them. The skin is thick, they have huge seeds, and they taste like musky, overly sweet bubble gum — they’re weird. But they’ve grown on me, and I was super excited to learn that I could pick them myself at Herndon Hills Farm, a family farm very close to Southpoint Mall. Current picking days are Sat, Tues, and Thurs, and this year the muscadine picking season started on August 30^th. I picked a couple different variaties of muscadines here today (my favorite being the golden-​color scuppernongs). The cost was $ 2.25 per pound — a good deal! They have ice cold water for you in case you start to overheat. They also have blueberries and blackberries earlier in the summer!