Today I ate my first wild raspberry of the season. My low bush blueberries have been out in full force. I’m sure I must be feeding an army of critters such as skunks, squirrels, and birds, but when I find an uneaten patch, it is pure heaven. The raspberries are another story. I have fought with them, driving them back down the steep slope behind my house, carving out gardens in the rocky spaces. After years of ripping them out by their tender roots, I took a calmer approach this year and decided the gardens were healthy enough to fend for themselves. The raspberries suddenly retreated to their allotted slope and are happily paying me in juicy sweetness.
I picked some blueberries for my cereal this morning. The tiny fruit are nothing like the grocery store variety. The flesh is dark and sweet, bursting with flavor, not mealy mush. Last year we picked berries at a local farm. I used snack baggies to package them up and then froze six one-gallon baggies chock full with the individual servings. If you pack them this way and manipulate the bags a little while freezing, you don’t end up with a lump of berries all stuck together. I had “fresh” berries all winter!
My blueberry bushes live in the front yard along the tree line. They need to be mowed or burned every second or third year to stimulate growth. In the fall, when the leaves turn, I am rewarded with a carpet of crimson, reds, oranges and yellows.
A walk around the yard produced a few shots of my bees working in the flower garden and the ladies returning to the hive laden with pollen. I opened the hive briefly Thursday and was pleased to see they have started to build out comb on the new frames. I would love to add another hive body and empty frames by the end of this month. That would give me time to build up a strong colony for the winter.
Therapeutic Misadventures 
Never heard of burning blueberry bushes…that must be only the lowbush type.
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Yes, it is a very fire tolerant plant. From Wikipedia: Traditionally, blueberry growers burn their fields every few years to get rid of shrubs and fertilize the soil. In Acadian French, a blueberry field is known as a “brûlis” (from brûlé, burnt) because of that technique, which is still in use.
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I know a great spot in Temple to pick wild black berries. I haven’t been berry picking in years, we should get together and go picking!
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Absolutely! Love black berries.
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