Monday, July 5, 2010

Blueberries

blueberries-dew1

Last Thursday, blueberry season officially commenced at the local blueberry farm. Aptly if unimaginatively named, Blueberry Ranch is one of the oldest U-Pick farms in the Midwest and is 100% certified organic. My dad let me know on Friday, saying that my mom was going picking that morning. Although we weren't quite dressed for it, Dwight and I decided to go right after work since the ranch is the opposite direction from our house; going home to change first seemed like a waste of time.

blueberry field

The weather was perfect and we happily picked for about 40 minutes, calling it good for the day. We'd already planned on coming back the next morning. We knew the weather was going to turn very hot and humid, so we arrived just after the ranched opened, around 7:00 am.

blueberries-dwight

Each armed with a 10 gallon bucket, dressed for picking and donning our iPods, Dwight and I went into Picking Mode. And oh, what picking it was. Because the season just started, the bushes were heavy with fruit, looking more like grape clusters than blueberries, they were so thick.

blueberries-cluster

The dew was heavy on the berries.
blueberries-dew2

The easiest thing to do was place the bucket under where you were picking and catch them as the fell, especially the when picking close to the ground.
blueberries-buckets

We picked for about an hour.
blueberries-picking

And ended up with almost 23 pounds of berries.
blueberries-weighed

Not too shabby, eh? Add that to the nearly 13 pound we picked the evening before, and we're flush with berries.
blueberries-washed
blueberries-bagged

I washed and bagged Friday night's haul and we still have most of Saturday morning's bounty in the fridge. I need to pick up more freezer bags, especially since the season goes for another 5-6 weeks with a new berry variety each week. We're going to be in blueberry heaven.

Thank goodness we have a stand freezer!

1 comment:

  1. Oh! I used to pick blueberries as a summer job in high school. I loved it. So peaceful! Also, it was the only time I ever got tan (I am glaringly white all year round). How fun!

    ReplyDelete

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