Nearing the End of the Blueberry Harvest of 2024

In the past we've enjoyed a little grove of blueberry bushes in the back hard.  There were three lines of four bushes.  The boys, Tricia, and I would carry out empty Daisy Sour Cream containers and encircle the bushes, picking the blueberries.  At first, we'd only pick the ones that were dark blue.  However, we learned that blueberries will ripen after being picked.  That left some 'wiggle room' in picking.  If you accidently picked one that was still red, well, no big deal.  Once you wash them and left them in the sink in the colander, the red ones would turn blue overnight.

Over time, we lost blueberry bushes for whatever reason.  Last year we suffered a drought.  Despite watering the best we could, we watched with sadness as the blueberry bushes' leaves turned red and died.  Out of the 12 original bushes we started with, in 2024 we only have four remaining.  Fortunately, those four bushes have grown bigger and essentially make up in production for the bushes we lost.  We're nearing the end of the harvest now.  Each day we pick so that the birds don't steal the crop.  It looks like we'll put up a little better than 4 gallons of blueberries.  That's not too shabby.  We eat a lot of them as we pick, too.

We generally go out in the late afternoon to pick.  The brutal sun has relented somewhat and the sun filters through the live oak leaves with muted sunlight.  The nosy goats come around to curiously look at the blueberry picking activity, hoping that they'll be the beneficiaries of some treat.  We've spoiled them in that regard, giving them the ends of cucumbers and other vegetable peelings.

Due to the generous rainfall this year, the berries are plump.  Despite our best efforts, the birds do eat their fair share.  That's okay.  They have to make a living, too.  

Toward the latter part of June, we reach the peak of the bell curve on blueberry yield.  The amount harvested gets smaller and smaller by the day.  Soon it won't be worth the time to go pick.  At that point, we'll let the cardinals and the mockingbirds and the bluejays harvest the rest of them for us.

Once the season is done, I'll re-mulch around the base of the bushes.  Some of our chickens get out of the pasture and into the yard from time to time.  When they do, they like to scratch the mulch at the base of the blueberry bushes to find bugs and worms.  It's better for the bushes to keep them mulched, so I'll work hard to fix the hen's scratching.  Later, we'll prune the blueberry bushes.  Russ will help me in that endeavor.  I'm not an experienced pruner.

Finally, I'd like to replenish our blueberry grove to make up for those that died.  The most inexpensive way to do that is to take some cuttings.  That's my new project before next spring.  I'll try to get some cuttings off of some of the existing bushes and get them rooted.  I'll keep you posted with our progress.