Friday, August 13, 2010

We're good for blue berries for the rest of the winter.....



Jim, Matt and I drove over to The Sugar Shack today to pick Blueberries. Boy, am I ever glad we decided to go today. It's there last day of the season! I'm not sure why, they have acres and acres of Blueberry bushes and many of them still looked loaded!

In 30 minutes we had picked 5 gallons of big fat berries! The only thing better would be grow them yourself...

Speaking of which, I do happen to have a few blueberry bushes out in the garden, but we've never had much luck growing them. So, while we were out there picking I asked some questions of the owners.

It seems that it takes 5 or 6 years to really get the big berry harvests. Ooooooooh! Maybe we just weren't patient enough. I also learned that they apply dormant oil in the late winter and use a soil acidifier twice a year. They mulch well, but only every 2 or 3 years and they use drip irrigation.

So...I may have to wander over to Penn Yan for a few more years, but come 2015, LOOK OUT! We're gonna have some MAJOR Blueberry bushes right here at the home place. Oh yeah!!!

2 comments:

Diane said...

What a harvest and fun family outing! Thank you for sharing this. I've never lived anywhere that blueberries were successfully grown. I planted a few bushes and even used the acid fertilizer, but didn't have the oodles of blueberries I was expecting. We moved when they were about 2 years old so, maybe, the next owners got appreciated what we started.

Mary said...

Terri, I love to take the grandsons to pick blueberries. We also tried growing a few of our own, but no luck. They winter-killed.

Nice to be in touch with you again. It was a bit of a recuperation period after my heart bypass surgery.

Blessings,
Mary