A bowl of blueberries a day

[Sarahkt]

There have been many (well-deserved) expressions of gratitude to the fig enablers in our group. It's time to acknowledge the blueberry enablers too. Thank you, blueberry coyotes!

I have an assortment of very young to young Southern highbushes: Sunshine Blue Dwarf, Star, Jewel, Emerald, Misty, Sharpblue, Springhigh, Top Hat, and most recently from the blueberry coyotes multiple Sweetcrisp and Windsor plants, with O'Neal also incoming (thanks again!). I'm pleasantly surprised by how productive the blueberries have been in their first year. Every variety is ripening berries except for Springhigh, Top Hat, and Windsor, which were either too young or too recently shipped through the postal system.

Next to the figs, the blueberries have been the top plants whose addition to the garden this last year has most added to its coolness factor. A few weeks ago, the early-season blueberries were coming in and I was picking a bowl like this every morning. Now the blueberries are picking up the pace and the crop is double this size or more every day, and the berries are sweeter and richer in flavor. The joy of having blueberries has been more than worth the trouble of setting up for acidic growing conditions.

Also, it's been great to see what the big deal about Sweetcrisp is. Worth the high praise on this forum! I haven't yet done a taste test of blueberries picked separately from each variety to rank them myself, but so far my favorites just picked off the bush have been Sweetcrisp and Misty. The Sweetcrisp do have a nice snap, and Misty berries have been tastebud winners, at least so far. That will probably change later in the season, and after the plants have grown a bit more in size and variety.

[danw]

Nice! I am envious.

Though I think you need to let those large red ones ripen more

[Sarahkt]

Ha! Those are bababerries (delicious raspberries) and a couple of the earliest strawberries. Those usually get eaten as soon as they're picked and don't make it to the bowl.

I have learned to stop picking blueberries as soon as they appear blue on one side and waiting until they've been blue a bit longer so they're fully blue and ripe. That bowl picture is from the earlier days so there are few not-quite-ripe berries in there.

[Harborseal]

So you had to go and tell me about a new raspberry variety...

I wonder if my recently delivered from cold storage plant will flower this year

[Sarahkt]

They're my favorite raspberry and grow very well in low chill areas like mine. Most of my berry patch is bababerry. They're good! Mild thorns, two crops, robust growers.

[Zuny]

Those blue berries look great. I bought 3 blue plants last year and my husband ran then over with the lawn mower. They were only babies and didn't recover. It made me upset because I told them were they were before he started. Eventually I forgave him because I told him he will have to replace them and he agreed.

[Sarahkt]

Haha! And have they been replaced yet? What kinds do you grow?

[Blueboy1977]

Cool factor is right! A big mature blue full of ripe fruit is a awesome sight to be hold! I can't wait for April/May every year. I used to go graze every day but I've gotten away from that and just pick all the ripe ones once a week. If you pick too often you end up getting a lot of red backs that just needed a couple more days to get ripe.

[Sarahkt]

Good point! I've come to that conclusion too. Lately I've been traveling for work and otherwise busy (and/or lazy), which is how I found out that letting them sit on the bush for a few days vs. rabidly picking every berry as soon as it turned blue had dramatic impact on flavor and sweetness. It is nice to be able to wander out whenever you want and just stuff berries into your mouth off the bush like a bear though.

We're going to start just picking every few days and keep a big container of them in the fridge. When you've run out fresh berries in the fridge bowl to put on your morning cereal and have to go out and restock fruit supplies, that's when you know you have first-world problems!

[m5allen]

Looks really good Sarah, nothing like homegrown, organic blueberries (or at least as close to organic as you can get).

aaaoooohhhh (that is the sound of a coyote howling at the moon).

[figgary]

Beautiful, Sarah! Mine are close to ripening. I can tell because the Robins are checking them in between their raids on the Mulberries

[Gina]

The joy of having blueberries has been more than worth the trouble of setting up for acidic growing conditions.

Amen to that. Wait till you add rainwater collection to the formula, lol.

I just love my blueberries, ... shhhh, don't tell anyone..... more than my figs. There are some days when grazing on blues replaces a meal. I'm thinking that might happen again this morning.

[cjmach1973]

Hate to say it, but I'm starting to look the other way. Trying to decide which berries have been a waste of time, and which figs to plant there instead.

[Sarahkt]

Wait till you add rainwater collection to the formula, lol.

Yep. I'm going to be better this year about installing a rain barrel before winter sets in. Hopefully next year I will get the rainwater incorporated into blueberry care. They probably aren't as healthy now with our drought water as they would be with acid rain, but I'm still happy with how they're growing. And next year they will be bigger! And the year after that. I've been disgustingly smug with Dean about how well it's turned out ("They laughed when I wanted to grow blueberries..."), since early on I heard a lot of complaints about heavy bags of peat and pH strips and sulfuric acid and all the other things that arrived in the mail with excess packaging. lol.

Hurray for blueberry meals! Yesterday was the first time where we finally felt secure that we'd had enough fresh blueberries coming in that we could afford to "waste" some in a blueberry banana mango smoothie, as opposed to sprinkling them lovingly over cereal, yogurt, by themselves, etc.

[WillsC]

Sounds like your BB are doing great Sarah, well done. Yesterday was my last picking of the year.........i'm glad it is over lol.

[Harborseal]

Congratulations. Here the picking has not yet begun. I can see a bluish blush on some of the berries. We have to wait longer but when certain of my plants get mature I'll have berries out to mid September.

[Sarahkt]

Such a range in people's seasons -- Wills' picking just ended and Bob's not yet started. I hope that mine still has a few weeks! I worried that today's harvest was a bit scantier than the one a few days ago, but might just be my imagination. It's not over yet!

[Gina]

Wills' season is, IMO, extremely short, especially considering he has so many plants, but most are Sweetcrisps. My season is going to be shorter this year than last, perhaps because the winter was so warm, and they all bloomed early at roughly the same time. My Southmoon's for example, have been in full-fruit along with all the other varieties, when usually they lag by a couple weeks. Same with Biloxi. I'm hoping next year they go back to a more prolonged season, which is what I really want.

What is interesting about Sweetcrisps is they do not seem to have a condensed 'ripe' season here. They ripen in a very drawn out manner. I noticed that last year too. My SCs this year also had more fruits than many of the others, which also goes against reports of it being not a heavy bearer. I wouldn't call its fruit set 'heavy', but quite nice. I don't really get heavy set on any of my blues - besides Emerald and Jewel.

[penandpike]

And my first berries still need few more days. These are Spartan.

[fruitnut]

Sweetcrisp holds a long time on the plant. Even the shriveled ones are crunchy. Mine this yr had some extremely sweet berries, 24+ brix, and a few tart ones. Eating those together gave a nice sweet/tart taste.

I'm not going to prune mine after harvest in hopes that they'll set more next yr. I'll tip some to keep them somewhat in hand. But beyond that they'll just sprawl over all sides of the pot with a pole in the center to hold them off the floor.

[mstanleyross]

This is the first crop of Blueberries, I planted them in the fall. They do have lots of berries that are not ripe yet. Looking forward to picking & tasting them before long.

[cjmach1973]

Up here in zone 5, the bumble bees are flying around and doing their magic. The berries should start in July, right after the first raspberries. still using last year's frozen for the pancakes though.

[Harborseal]

How many plants do you have for how many people? What types and how old. I want to be in a position where my berries last all year but I'm no where near

[cjmach1973]

I have ten plants, some wild, and others I don't remember who is who.My driving job took up way too much of my time, so I never had enough time to take care of them...until this year. I know that I bought Elliot, Jersey, and Blue crop, but the tags are long gone. I have three people in the house that eat them.

[WillsC]

Wills' season is, IMO, extremely short, especially considering he has so many plants, but most are Sweetcrisps. My season is going to be shorter this year than last, perhaps because the winter was so warm, and they all bloomed early at roughly the same time. My Southmoon's for example, have been in full-fruit along with all the other varieties, when usually they lag by a couple weeks. Same with Biloxi. I'm hoping next year they go back to a more prolonged season, which is what I really want.

What is interesting about Sweetcrisps is they do not seem to have a condensed 'ripe' season here. They ripen in a very drawn out manner. I noticed that last year too. My SCs this year also had more fruits than many of the others, which also goes against reports of it being not a heavy bearer. I wouldn't call its fruit set 'heavy', but quite nice. I don't really get heavy set on any of my blues - besides Emerald and Jewel.

Pretty short I guess, about 4 weeks. Yours is of course longer because you don't get the chill hours. The reason this area of Florida is such a popular place for commercial BB farms is we are in a sweet spot for chill hours and temps. Enough chill for the plants yet early enough to hit the peak price. Good for the farmers but I would prefer a 12 month picking season

[Harborseal]

Wills. if you want a 12 month picking season you could easily do it. All you need are 6 greenhouses all time shifted by heat or A/C so that 1 house is in bloom at all times. You could have a mix of Low, HH, Highs and Rabbiteyes and your season could easily be continuous year round. Just go do it and stop wishing. You have the resources. You can include figs and anything else you want in there and get them year round, too.