Blueberries for The Farmer

Do you remember the book Blueberries for Sal? It's one of the classics, and as a librarian's daughter it was a must-read in my family. While set in Maine, the book reminds me of the Pacific Northwest in the summer...also known as berry season. I don't think I truly realized how much berries were a PNW "thing" until I moved out of the area.

But while berries are a mainstay around here, most people rely on the farmers to grow them. Sans blackberries - which are wild - I suspect more buy their berries at the local grocery store or roadside stand. Growing up we had times with strawberries and raspberries in our front yard, but most of the time fresh berries meant pulling over to the side of the road and buying a cute little basket of juicy deliciousness.

When we bought the Jungle House we knew we had some fruit trees and grape vines in the yard.

March 2012

We had no clue what fruit the trees would bear or even if they were viable. After being uninhabited for close to two years, and being a rental for three years before then we knew a bit of TLC was in order.

Of course, part of the definition of "TLC" was completely ripping out the grape vines last spring.

April 2012

They took over part of the front lawn and lined the driveway. We weren't exactly sure if the driveway fence was holding up the vines, or vice versa.

In either case, they had to go...

But did you notice those bushes at the end of the driveway fence?

Yeah, we missed them at first too.

April 2013

But when you took away the fence they made their presence known. One of our neighbors, a Master Gardener, told us they were blueberries and gave us some fertilizer to hopefully revitalize them.

Honestly, we had little hope for their survival, let alone fruit-bearing. 

But guess what we have lining our driveway this year?

An abundance of berries!

They obviously are still quite green but a few have started to turn shades of purple. The Farmer is dreaming of blueberry pancakes.

Unfortunately not all the bushes made it...

But one bush out of a dozen ain't bad odds!

Now if we can just keep the birds out of them we'll invite you over for blueberry pancakes.