Berry Time

Category: Summer | Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2014 6:08 pm

Berry time is a little late in my yard this year. We usually get our first blueberry close to The last week of May, not June. That is just fine because I have never seen so many berry on the producing blueberry bush.

Blueberries ( photo / image / picture from Jewell's Garden )

That one bush will keep me busy picking berries most of the summer. The other three blueberry bushes have been revitalized by a hard pruning last summer. They are now three times the size they were before. Next year those bushes will be great producers too.

The last two years I have bought two blueberry bushes each year. The first two bushes are already three to four feet tall. With judicious pinching back we will hopefully be freezing much more of the blueberries we consume.

A berry that takes a little more work, but we enjoy are the raspberries. Unfortunately they are easily damaged by rain. We had some measurable rains today. This week and most of the spring I have been managing the new raspberry plants that sprout all around the parent plants. Some are even six feet away. They are still tasty, just a lot more work than blueberries to maintain.

Raspberries ( photo / image / picture from Jewell's Garden )

The last berries we have are strawberries. They produce the least and I am just not very successful with them. There are a variety of reasons. Lack of light and warmth might contribute to part of the problem. Slugs are another problem, but using shredded cedar mulch has helped a lot with those varmints. But the cedar doesn't help with the main varmint ......

Varmint in berries ( photo / image / picture from Jewell's Garden )

Max....his guilty look ( photo / image / picture from Jewell's Garden )

How could I refuse him strawberries? Someone needs to pick the lower berries.

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Comments

eclecticgarden wrote on Sat Jun 28, 2014 12:18 pm:

I'm glad you are getting to enjoy the berries. I had the best production with blueberries this year, but unfortunately I didn't protect them from the chickens like I should have. Guess they are anti-oxidized for the year.

JewellSloan wrote on Sat Jun 28, 2014 5:29 pm:

Hi Jewell, I've got a very interesting story for you! Today I looked out my window & saw that my stargazer lillies had bloomed, but they were yellow & red instead of orange! So I hopped online & typed in "do stargazer lillies revert?" and your stargazer lilly question was in the results, so I clicked it. There I found that stargazer lillies indeed do revert, but I also noticed your unique name - Jewell - which is also my name! Then I saw that you live in Washington, as do I! I thought it was just too much of a coincidence to not mention to you. Thank you for your stargazer post, and I have really enjoyed looking through all the photos on your blog! Jewell Sloan, Yelm, WA, jewell_sloan@yahoo.com

Jewell wrote on Sat Jun 28, 2014 6:12 pm:

Yes Jewell, the world is full of serendipity. I live in Olympia so we are indeed neighbors. Hope you stick around and enjoy the online community here.

JewellSloan wrote on Sun Jun 29, 2014 12:10 am:

I hadn't considered it, but perhaps I will, I do have an over abundant garden :) And Olympia is just gorgeous, I try to make it over there once a week.