There’s a great new place to go in the Pinelands to pick blueberries and be at one with South Jersey nature. The New Jersey Conservation Foundation has linked 202 acres of blueberry fields, woodlands and wetlands to its existing Evert Trail Preserve in the Pine Barrens – more than doubling the amount of protected land open to the public.

Known as Blueberry Acres, the land was purchased for $410,000 from multiple property owners and funded largely through the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres program. The nonprofit Trust for Public Land, which led negotiations, called the acquisition “crucial to protecting water quality in the Rancocas Creek, the only Pine Barrens watershed that drains west to the Delaware River.”

Peak blueberry season is late June through early August. This is your early heads up.