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W00t! Blueberries Are In

lxskllr

lxskllr

No Lifer
Just looked out the window, and noticed the blueberries are ripe. Having a bowl of yogurt, banana, blueberry, and honey. The blackberries and raspberries should be in by the end of the week. I love berry season. Free food is the best food.
 
I've got 4 huge bushes that are loaded this year. The smaller bushes won't yield more than a handful or two for the next couple of years. And, just purchased 3 more bushes to put in. Raspberries aren't doing too great this year - the bushes didn't grow too much, not sure what's wrong. The weather has been awesome for blackberries and thimbleberries - should get a couple gallons of those from near the stream on my property this year.

But aside from the blackberries & thimbleberries (and the occasional wild raspberries), not a whole lot that's "free" about them. Though, I'd like to figure out how to propagate the blueberry bushes and turn a dozen or so into a hundred.
 
DrPizza said:
I've got 4 huge bushes that are loaded this year. The smaller bushes won't yield more than a handful or two for the next couple of years. And, just purchased 3 more bushes to put in. Raspberries aren't doing too great this year - the bushes didn't grow too much, not sure what's wrong. The weather has been awesome for blackberries and thimbleberries - should get a couple gallons of those from near the stream on my property this year.
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I only have one blueberry bush, but it's looking great. Tons of berries on it. My raspberries are doing pretty well. The vines perhaps aren't as wide ranging as they usually are, but they loaded with berries too, or will be when they come in anyway. I only have a couple blackberry plants. They came via birds. Not enough to really make much, but they're good for mixed berry blends with the other stuff.
 
We just purchased 4 large blueberry bushes this year - got tired of waiting; wanted quite a few quarts of blueberries. Planting them was pretty difficult. By "big", I mean the plants had to be loaded onto our trailer using a skidsteer loader.

I forgot the patch of strawberries. Cheap to put in, but somewhat labor intensive to keep them doing well. Our eventual goal is to be as close to 100% self-sufficient for food. I just got the honey extractor all cleaned up & ready to spin out two boxes of honey - should get at least 50 pounds of honey today.
 
I have mulberry bushes/trees also. I have a hard time getting excited about those. The flavor's thin and sweet, and it seems to draw more bugs than the other plants.

What I really want is pawpaw. I used to have seeds I found from wild trees, but I don't know what I did with them. They're fairly rare around here, and I've probably only seen a dozen or so my whole life. I can't remember where I saw them anymore :^/
 
Birds took most of our blueberries. We have tons of peaches though. We didn't thin out the peaches so the tree is struggling from the weight of all the peaches. Tree ripen peaches are awesome and so much better than store bought ones.
 
There's a place a little ways north of me that lets you come out for $XX.XX and pick as many as you can carry. Might be a nice weekend activity...other than having to get up ass a.m. to beat the crowd.
 
Wow, I remember when I was a kid living in the burbs, we had so many blueberries this time of year. I would spend all day eating them. My poop was green all summer long. Man, I miss that (blueberries, not green poop). Enjoy!
 
lxskllr said:
I have mulberry bushes/trees also. I have a hard time getting excited about those. The flavor's thin and sweet, and it seems to draw more bugs than the other plants.

What I really want is pawpaw. I used to have seeds I found from wild trees, but I don't know what I did with them. They're fairly rare around here, and I've probably only seen a dozen or so my whole life. I can't remember where I saw them anymore :^/
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You can buy plants from Starks. I trust their quality.
http://www.starkbros.com/products/f...s;jsessionid=9E26212FAFDC38AAAEC1F70915A0DF3D
 
ponyo said:
Birds took most of our blueberries. We have tons of peaches though. We didn't thin out the peaches so the tree is struggling from the weight of all the peaches. Tree ripen peaches are awesome and so much better than store bought ones.
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Once you've eaten a tree ripened peach, you realize store bought peaches suck. Personally, I'm looking forward to cherry season (about 1-2 weeks away here. Pick all you want, and it's fairly cheap - maybe $1.50 per pound or less. They should weigh me before and after though. I have a habit of getting sick. The place we go also has cherry pitting, so we can pick 100 pounds, and have them all pitted. Then freeze them. (I usually give a few friends several pounds of cherries.) Frozen bing, black oxheart, etc. cherries are like picking those frozen cherries out of ice cream. Yum!
 
I put in some small blueberry bushes last year and the fucking rabbits destroyed the poor things this spring. Little bastards came through and ate all of of the new growth off at the base of the bush and left a pile of dead twigs scattered all around. I finally got a chance to get a fence up around them and they appear to be recovering but I won't get anything out of them this year.

Same rabbits also ate $20 worth of pepper and tomato starts. Went to go buy an air rifle to mitigate my rabbit issues and you need a state firearm owners card to buy one with any sort of knock down power. Boo! So I've applied for the card for next spring.
 
vi edit said:
I put in some small blueberry bushes last year and the fucking rabbits destroyed the poor things this spring. Little bastards came through and ate all of of the new growth off at the base of the bush and left a pile of dead twigs scattered all around. I finally got a chance to get a fence up around them and they appear to be recovering but I won't get anything out of them this year.

Same rabbits also ate $20 worth of pepper and tomato starts. Went to go buy an air rifle to mitigate my rabbit issues and you need a state firearm owners card to buy one with any sort of knock down power. Boo! So I've applied for the card for next spring.
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Sorry, but I laughed.

Ruger has a 1Kft/s pellet rifle w/scope. Get the competition pellets...the others aren't accurate worth a crap.
 
highland145 said:
Sorry, but I laughed.

Ruger has a 1Kft/s pellet rifle w/scope. Get the competition pellets...the others aren't accurate worth a crap.
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I'm looking at an RWS48 .22 with a scope. It'll be something my boy ends up learning on when he's older.
 
lxskllr said:
Just looked out the window, and noticed the blueberries are ripe. Having a bowl of yogurt, banana, blueberry, and honey. The blackberries and raspberries should be in by the end of the week. I love berry season. Free food is the best food.
Click to expand...

Agree. My strawberry patch is in overdrive right now. For the last month I have been picking 1-2 pints each week of delicious sweet berries.

I have a raspberry bush that miraculously grew from nowhere. I think birds must have dropped some seeds and its going on its third year so far. I also know where there is roughly a 100x100 foot patch of wild black raspberry vines in the woods near my house. I've never seen that many raspberries growing in one place. Each season I make multiple visits and pick the vines clean of black raspberries. Last year, I picked enough to make 20-something pints of preserves which I ended up canning. With so much in my basement, I haven't had to buy jam/preserves in a year.

My blackberries are not doing so well with only minimal flowers. Last year was their first full season in the ground (the year before, I bought them in September in an end of season sale for $5 each which a steal; they went promptly in the ground and survived the winter), so this is technically their second season growing.
 
My next door neighbors give use Blackberries. They are outstanding. Blueberries came from Cali, and they are meh. Cherries from Washington are crazy good. Tomatoes, colored bell peppers, and herbs are mine. Georgia melons of all kinds are exceptional this year. Almost too sweet, if such a thing were possible for fruit.
 
lxskllr said:
Is she a pro, or is it an advanced hobby?
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It's where I'm going when the economy crashes. Cows, chickens, pigs, berries, veggies...85AC. Growing them for the $$ but not as smart as she could. Family of 5 picks and sells. That's a shit load of berries. Keep telling her she could hire day laborers and have the whole place picked in no time. Her answers 1) Will take $$ from the profits and 2) I don't want strangers on my property. Screw that, I say.
 
DAPUNISHER said:
My next door neighbors give use Blackberries. They are outstanding. Blueberries came from Cali, and they are meh. Cherries from Washington are crazy good. Tomatoes, colored bell peppers, and herbs are mine. Georgia melons of all kinds are exceptional this year. Almost too sweet, if such a thing were possible for fruit.
Click to expand...

I got some commercial peppers from a friend, and they were sweet like tree fruit. I don't know what they were, but they were various colors, with the size and shape of hot peppers, but unbelievably sweet. Very tasty, and very unusual, at from my previous experience with peppers.
 
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