Sunday, October 20, 2024

The blueberries are done

Ever since we planted the blueberry bushes here in our new home, they've been growing like mad.


Their production is increasing, too. The first year, I harvested one pound of berries – not surprising, since the bushes were just ramping up. Last year, they produced sixteen pounds.

This was on the order of what our bushes in our last home produced every summer, so to be honest I would have been perfectly satisfied with that.

But this year, the bushes produced and produced and produced. I picked and picked and picked. I filled gallon bags with fruit and popped them in the chest freezer, and I kinda lost count of how much I had. All I knew was it was a lot.

Finally I got tired of having to burrow past endless bags of blueberries in the freezer whenever I needed something, so I knew it was time to weigh the summer's bounty and get it canned up. I pulled all the bags out of the freezer and laid them on the table.

Can you see why these bags were dominating the freezer space?

One by one, I started weighing the bags, and tallying the results.

The total: 57.25 lbs!!!

Holy toledo, I did NOT expect the bushes to be this fruitful.

The trouble is, we don't need nearly sixty pounds of blueberries. I still have some canned up from last year. The solution, of course, was to give most of them away. I gave ten pounds of frozen berries to the UPS driver, a very sweet man, who said his wife canned and would be grateful for the fruit.

I planned to can up the rest and distribute a good portion to church members.

Canning gave me an excuse to use my lovely new water-bath canners I got for my birthday last year.

I canned everything using a "very light" syrup, the recipe of which can be found in this canning reference book.

While the syrup heated up...

...I washed fourteen quart jars, the maximum the two canners could handle.

The berries had been defrosting overnight. I cold-packed the defrosted fruit into quart jars.

Adding the syrup.

Wiping the rims (and checking for nicks).

Filling the canners with water. I used regular disposable lids for these berries instead of Tattlers, since I was giving away the majority of the canned blueberries and didn't want to lose any Tattler lids.

For raw packs in quarts at our elevation, I needed to process the jars for 25 minutes at a rolling boil.

I brought the water up to a rolling boil and began timing the berries. Suddenly I heard a bang. Sure enough, the bottom broke off one of the jars, resulting in a deluge of loose blueberries and a broken jar floating at the top of the pot.

I fished out the broken jar and let the rest of the jars process.

The culprit, I believe, is the racks that came with the pots didn't have enough clearance from the bottom. (During canning, jars should never be in direct contact with the pot's bottom.)

So I put a rack at the bottom. Duh, I should have done that first.

Typical canning chaos in the kitchen.

When all was said and done, I canned up 36 quarts of blueberries (including the one that broke), plus gave away another 10 lbs. of frozen berries to the UPS fellow.

Now 36 quarts of blueberries – on top of what I haven't yet used up from last year – is way more than we need, so we brought 24 of those quarts to church to hand out. (By the time I managed to snap a photo, several quarts had already been claimed.) The only request – augmented by a piece of tape on each quart – was to return the jars to me when the contents are finished. (What can I say, I'm territorial about my canning jars.) Needless to say, every last jar disappeared.

Interestingly, though, several older church members have offered me some of their surplus canning jars they no longer need, so it's turned into a win-win situation.

Incidentally, a reader asked, "How do you make pie filling from your canned blueberries?" To make a blueberry pie, I drain the berries, add sugar to taste, and about half a cup of flour, mix everything, and pour it into a pie crust. Sometimes I'll add a pat or two of butter over the top of the berries before putting the pie top on.

So that's our blueberry harvest for the year. With nearly sixty pounds harvested, that's about three-and-half times what we harvested the year before. I wonder what will happen next year?

8 comments:

  1. You're going to be well and truly over-run by them next year lol. Congrats on successful gardening. It's lovely that so many could be blessed by your bountiful harvest.

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  2. When canning locally harvested blueberries, sometimes we will use honey instead of sugar. Works great and less commercial sugar!..and they taste better, too, IMHO.
    -JLM

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  3. I also had a great blueberry harvest. We had one last year and the year before that.

    Zucchini and blueberry muffins with a streusel on top is great. They also freeze nicely and can be pulled out one at a time and enjoyed with your morning coffee.

    Yummy. I love blueberries !!!

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  4. I am envious of your blueberries, having grown up in the northwest, we picked wild blueberries every year. Utah is just to dry for blueberries, we are in a high desert. How wonderful that you shared with so many. I look forward to your posts and enjoy them

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  5. Try dehydrating, for in the pocket munchies ! or travel !

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  6. Heavy syrup for me. What good is it to have a sweet tooth and not satisfy it?

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  7. Since your bushes will multiply, you could pull some and sell bushes through Craigslist or by word of mouth. I’d certainly want to buy proven sto k

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  8. We've had such a horrendous draught here in Alabama I've been thankful for my extensive array of big pots. The blueberries in those pots did well, but I was thinking of putting them in the ground in another spot. However, as weeks have continued to tick by without rain, I've decided to just move the pots. I can't physically do that though without unpotting them, relocating the big pots, then replanting and adding fresh soil. So it's one of the cold weather projects this year.
    One plant which seemed to have been killed by the cold last winter came back in five places with fresh green shoots. The green shoots are what cuttings should come from, so maybe that freeze can turn into a blessing.
    I'm going to separate the new clumps into 5 individual big pots and make cuttings from some of the longer shoots. Expanded blueberry garden!
    The relocation spot is on a south facing hill with some pines to the north and west sides. The hill along with the shelter of pines, and their free mulching, should be a good spot to protect them and encourage growth. And it's within reach of my hose.
    So many uses for those berries!
    The chickens love them, which also factors into relocation and keeping them up off the ground. But they still get an occasional treat, sometimes by jumping up to steal some, and sometimes from mom.
    There's been a health craze in recent years of adding fruits or veggies to your water pitcher to naturally flavor your water. It's so good! Berries have to be smashed some, but it's a great idea.
    I also make blueberry lemonade which is an incredible thirst quencher and uses up berries pretty fast!
    I like to make my lemonade by chopping chuncks of whole seeded lemon and blending it, then adding water and non-glycemic sweetener. Frozen blueberries can be blended into this, and helps make it slushy.
    Using whole lemons may not be everyone's cup of tea, but for me I love the fresh zest and rest of the lemon because of all the health benefits. With blueberries added it's just great. Cold, sweet, and a little bit filling like a snack. And nutritious.
    The topic of blueberries never fails to get me going. Love love love them!

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