Last year, if you recall, we harvested just short of 60 lbs. of blueberries.
This year, if the current crop of blossoms are anything to go by, the harvest may exceed last year's.
Some blossoms are clustered so thickly, they seem like they'll resemble grape clusters when ripe.
While I've seen some honeybees among the flowers, the primary pollinators are bumblebees. We have hundreds.
Picking won't commence until early July or so, and then the harvest will be spread over several weeks.
Last year, with so many berries, we ended up giving a lot of them away. I gave about 20 lbs. of frozen berries to our very nice UPS driver (whose wife also cans). Also I brought a bunch of canned blueberries to church and gave them away, the only stipulation being that people return the canning jars when they were finished.
I was speculating to Younger Daughter how many pounds of berries we might get this year, and she had a very good suggestion: Why not try making blueberry wine? Don gave me a winemaking kit a few years ago, just before we moved, and I haven't had a chance to use it yet.
I have a feeling I know where most of this year's blueberry crop might go.
Carpenter bees pollinated my blueberries this year, and some are already ripening.
ReplyDeleteThings down here in the south have been happening weeks earlier this year.... maybe even a month.
Dogwood bloomed way early, and right after that I was driving and noticed the Mountain Laurel blooming as well. Usually it blooms a month after the Dogwood. And the Honeysuckle. Wild blackberries are already ripening, even though it is way cooler than usual.
And, unfortunately, the dreaded lubbers hatched a month early too. Last year there were so few it emboldened me to go ahead and plant stuff early this year. They much prefer to eat from human labor than the wild greenery around. I hate them for that and because they are so hard to kill. I have found that what makes me least squeamish is to put a heavy rock on top of them and fire ants will kill them. The only use I have for fire ants. They also will die if you cover them in place with a jar. Ugh.
Back to the blueberries. I would love to get rid of the carpenter bees, but it's so wooded that won't happen. Like all pests, they prefer to eat my house to the trees in spite of treated wood or paint. But now the blueberries are coming along, and pears, and strawberries, it's time to go to war with the bees.
The next pollinators coming along will be guinea wasps.
By the sweat of our brows we will eat. But God didn't warn of insects from hell.