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Monday, July 18. 2016Superfruit, with TanagerEver tried growing Blueberries? I have tried any number of times and man, are they picky. I place them on the list of plants that only thrive where they feel like it. If they aren't happy, there ain't nothin you can do about it. You just have to admit defeat. Even if you have some modest success, without netting I would lose all of the berries to the Robins and Catbirds. On the farm where I spent my weekends growing up, wild blueberries grew all along the hayfield edges, reaching out from the woods over the barbed-wire fences. They grew up to 8' high, so every age had his own level to pick. They were so productive that it was no problem sharing with the birds. My Mom took coffee cans, made two holes with a nail and strung a string through them to hang around your neck, and painted our names on them with blue paint spots to indicate "berry can." Those cans hung in the barn for years. I have seen similar wonderful areas of wild highbush blueberries on Cape Cod, but was never there much during blueberry season. Despite what is said about growing them, the wild bushes seem to like boggy edges, or at least lowlands. There is no doubt that they need acidic soil. Not being a Maine guy except during grouse season, I have no experience with the Lowbush Blueberry. After a picking, my Mom would always make a Blueberry flat cake with hard sauce. Wow. Such memories. It's too bad there are no wild Blueberries on Maggie's Farm, but there are none. The Blueberry is not a true fruit. Furthermore, it's in the Rhodadendron family. It's in the (marketing) category of "superfruits" because they are supposed to be "good for you," whatever the heck that means (nothing). With some new full-sun garden space, I was considering trying again with a row of around 6 Blueberry bushes. Problem is, I want the small dark wild ones that look more black than blue with the intense wild tang, and not the fancy, fat, overly-sweet hybrids that you can get at the store anyway. Plus I don't want to bother with netting. Wiki has a good Blueberry entry. So does the US Highbush Blueberry Council. "Tobacco netting" for berries. Other ways to keep the birds from eating all of your berry crops. Also, in the NYT, a little story about a family of Scarlet Tanagers - a splendid bird - getting caught under bird netting. The netting has to be very well-secured to the ground unless you want to build a bird trap. These Tanagers are not rare in Eastern deciduous woodlands, but they aren't seen often because they tend to forage high and quiet. Here's the CLO bit on them.
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What a great looking bird,we have a surplus of little brown jobs here and nothing with such vibrant colouration.
We have a very large blueberry bush next to our house (8+ feet) but it never bears fruit. I've heard you have to have male & female plants nearby to germinate them -- have you heard this?
need at least one other plant (of a diff variety) in the vicinity for cross-pollination.
Cross pollination? Not in my experience. My husband brought a blueberry bush with him from a different state/different property. He planted it next to the house. It was the only one he had. It loves it there, gives us lots of berries every year. It is over 16 years old at this point.
We also have many more in our yard that we moved from one spot in the garden (they did terribly...almost died out) to other places in our yard. Just to find the best spots. So far the row we have along the backside of our house do okay. But that original bush is the best one. I have a pair of highbush blueberries. One is quite scrawny and would hardly seem capable of copulation. The other makes the neighborhood birds VERY happy by bearing copious fruit. The birds get all the good stuff 'cause I don't like the sour ones that aren't ripe yet and the birds pick all the ripe ones.
I once tried netting but killed more birds than I could bear so I removed it and never used it again. If you can figure out how to cultivate Huckleberries you could make millions. Many have tried but none have succeeded (as far as I know). Huckleberries have a very distinct flavor and grow only in certain areas. Sunlight, drainage, Ph of the soil, minerals, daylight hours, etc ... I understand that Huckleberries are a species of Blueberry as are Elderberries. All good eating.
mmmm. . . been thinking the same thing for several years now. Want (need?) those dark little "wild Maine" blueberries. You MUST order them through the mail from the growers in Maine. I am willing to try a couple of them. Can't stand those big tasteless things that only taste blue--no flavor!
Sprinkle blueberries with brown sugar, toss, let marinate a few hours. Spoon into bowl, add a dollop of sour cream or Greek yogurt, top with a tad more brown sugar.
My late father-in-law thought the chiggers were worth collecting wild blueberries just for this dessert. Sadly, they don't do well here. There are pick-your-own blueberry farms up around Houston, but they don't have a good flavor, not even as good as the bland berries you get in the supermarket. It's the price we pay for being able to grow grapefruit and (in lucky years) bananas.
My great-grandfather was a blueberry farmer in Nova Scotia - (Pubnicos) - used to ship to Boston markets in the morning.
Blueberries are a miraculous fruit.
Eat them each morning for 80 years and you're guaranteed to live to at least 80. I'm way past 80, and am interested in 100. If I eat them each morning for 100 years am I guaranteed to live to at least 100?
My favorite fruit. We get them in abundance here in the NW, about the same time that the salmon come in--just the best time of year. A month later they'll be abundant and ripe in the mountains. I grow them at home, but they don't always produce--don't know why.
Wild Maine blueberry cake for dessert after a mess of steamers and a 1 1/2 soft shell..wicked good..
Coming from Maine, until I moved away, I never knew that blueberries grew on high bushes. At our camp we had in Orland ME when I was a kid, we used to go and pick blueberries all summer, blueberry pancakes are the best.
I grew up in Franklin, Mass., just 9 miles north of Providence. There were both high bush and low bush blueberries in the woods behind my house, but mostly low bush. I was the youngest of 3 boys. Mom bought peanut butter in metal buckets (they was probably 2 or 3 pounds of PB in them) and would save the buckets for berry picking. She'd tie a loop of string on the handle to hand around our necks. She made blueberry jam (among other things) out of them. I still have a jar of it. I wouldn't dare eat it at this point, but I'll save it until I'm gone.
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Re our post on Blueberries today, I found a source for the wild type, non-hybridized highbush blueberry. I would suspect that these would naturalize well, given the right damp, acidic and sunny location. (The cultivated blueberrys do not seem to na
Tracked: Jun 04, 08:14