Thursday, July 18, 2013

Berry picking

Suddenly the garden is exploding with berries -- blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. Time to pick!

I marshaled the girls, and each concentrated on her favorite fruit. Older Daughter with the strawberries...


...Younger Daughter with the raspberries...


...while I picked blueberries.

The strawberries have been producing very well for two or three weeks now. Every day we go out and pick a bowl-full. It's hard to imagine putting any of these up for the winter because frankly we're all greedy for fresh strawberries and devour them the moment they make their way into the house.


I'm not worried because this is just the first year for these strawberries (I only planted them two months ago) and I expect by next year we'll be drowning in fruit. For this summer, however, we're enjoying the fresh ripe sun-warmed berries that are as sweet as candy.

I've been keeping an eye on the blueberry plants. They're loaded with berries, and gradually the first flush of blue crept into the green fruit.


Then all of a sudden -- boom! -- a bunch of berries turned blue and were ready to pick. I got about a pint from the first picking.


Same with the raspberries. A few days ago they were mostly green. A few were flushing red and swelling with juice, but nothing significant. Then boom! -- a bunch suddenly ripened.



So the girls and I spent a half-hour picking fruit and came away with the sun-ripened start of summer's bounty.


It (ahem) didn't last long.


But that's okay. There's more where those came from.

9 comments:

  1. Sweet success!!

    A. McSp

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are blessed, blessed and blessed,they look soooo good absolutely yummy looking! Enjoy, that is the best way to counter that artificial ice cream and that did look good but not for me!
    I love fresh berries and yours are the best looking!

    ReplyDelete
  3. do you put netting over your berries? iam surprised the birds haven't eaten them. they are picture perfect yum!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I can tell you from experience right now that next year you'll have more strawberries than you can imagine. YOU'LL know what to do with them....

    Can 'em up!

    Your crop looks great!

    Just Me

    ReplyDelete
  5. Can I help? I got my own bucket I used to help grandma pick raspberries when I was a kid. The bucket is practically brand new, hardly ever touched by a berry!!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Our raspberries are doing well this year, also.

    Started with 6 starts, 5 years ago, and now we have 40 feet. :-D

    Bob
    III

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yum! Enjoy them while they're fresh... more enzymes and anti-oxidants that way. Jenny

    ReplyDelete