Picking Blueberries

Right outside the back door we have 6 blueberry bushes that have been growing for several years, each year adding height and width.  This Fall I'm going to learn how to prune them to make them more manageable.  Last year we had 9 bushes, but for some strange reason, three of them that were planted together died, leaving us with only 6.

The six blueberry bushes have flourished and are ripening.  In fact they must be picked each and every day.  This is one of Benjamin's jobs in addition to gathering eggs.  Each day, he goes out with a bucket and circles the bushes, looking for the berries that are ripe.  You want to pick them at the peak of ripeness for them to be their best.  Sometimes looks can be deceiving as some ripen unevenly, being blue on one side and still green or red on the other.

Searching through the foliage for ripe berries

In previous years, we've had dry months which cause the berries to be small.  This year, however, with all of the rainfall, the blueberries are plump and juicy.

A couple of ripe ones!

It takes about 15 - 20 minutes to do a really thorough job of looking closely at all the blueberry bushes and picking those out that are ready.  Each day Benjamin has been getting about a pint of berries, but the yield seems to be increasing each day. He'll bring them in and we wash them off real good in the colander.  It is important to clean them up.

Blueberries all cleaned

Once they are dried, we simply pour them into a gallon sized freezer bag and pop them in the freezer. They are easy to break apart into individual berries once frozen since they're round, and then you can pour them into a measuring cup for making your favorite recipes like blueberry pancakes, blueberry muffins, blueberry cobblers and pies, and blueberry waffles.  

One gallon of 

We've been picking for less than a week and already have a gallon of blueberries in the freezer.  It looks like even with 3 fewer blueberry bushes this year, we're going to have a better harvest. This year we might even make some blueberry jelly with the excess.