U-Pick Time
My few bushes of blueberries in the garden produce just barely enough to keep the birds happy along with a taste or two for us humans, not nearly enough for our berry loving family. The local U-Pick farm has many varieties available and my sister and I made a date to get our share.
We had buckets aplenty, a warm day expected and an early start.
It was all we needed to pick more than 40 lbs of the delicious Legacy variety of blueberries. Between the two of us we were able to get 24 quarts of luscious blueberry goodness cleaned, processed and into the freezer while still leaving some for fresh eating.
It always astounds me that even with careful picking, and even more careful sorting during the cleaning process, stems, green berries, leaves and dried blossom ends still end up in the finished bags.
Anything unseemly found by devour-ers of the product are reminded that extra fiber is good for the digestion, and no harm will come to those to partake either accidentally or on purpose.
We have 9 blueberry bushes. I planted the first four many years ago as landscape plants that produced food I could eat. The other 5 are about 5 years old and I planted varieties that would produce from early to late, so the pickings for both freezer and fresh eating last about 2 months. In my opinion, blueberries top the list when “putting things by.” There is no easier or more satisfactory produce for this than blueberries.