Boy, have I seen the rain! It has rained eight days this month, and it's only the ninth day of the month! It rained fifteen out of thirty days last month.
Though the rain destroyed almost all of our strawberries (we only had two weeks of harvest), it has been quite a lovely thing for the blueberries.
We grow about half a dozen blueberry varieties. The first to ripen are a true treat. They have delicate vanilla undertones that give them rockstar status around here. We'll do our first harvest this Friday!
So, how do we know when they're sweet? The berries are ready to pick when the base of the stem turns blue. As you can see, the berries above are preparing themselves for market on Saturday.
Much to the birds' delight, we don't use wildlife netting on the blueberries. We have so many bushes that it just wouldn't be practical. Luckily, the birds have been kind enough to share the bounty with us. Unfortunately for the deer, we do have an electric fence to keep them at bay.
While watching the berries ripen, we've been keeping ourselves busy harvesting, drying, and cleaning garlic. I've had a lot of fun making braids this week. The garlic braids will be tagging along with the blueberries this weekend at market!
We're tired of rain too. Thanks for the blueberry tip on ripeness. I didn't know that. We "might" get a handful this year as our bushes are very young and small.
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