This weeks main harvest was blueberries. 3.5 pounds of them. It pretty well ends the season with only a few dozen berries left on the bushes. I've trimmed most of them back already and now it's babying them until fall again. Well worth it if you ask me.
Most of the blueberries were washed, dried and frozen on baggies for easy access. I saved a pound that is destined for blueberry pie and blueberry muffins. I'll also make blueberry jam, but that I can make from frozen berries if I need to. We tend to eat about a pint in a day between the 5 of us.
Yum. Some of these berries were exceptionally large, and I'm hoping that means that the fruit size is going to increase next year to match what only a few of these were. This was the 3rd year in production for these plants. Maybe the 4th year is ideal for size, or maybe i"m just finally supplying the bushes with what they need.
I currently have 16 plants that I rooted from cuttings last year. They will be ready to begin production next year or the following depending on their summer growth.
In other news, also joining this weeks harvest are peaches!
These lovely little jewels are scrumptious and I'm finally getting enough to keep the kids fed each day. Featured here is a typical bowl that gets picked and eaten daily. But, production is ramped up with a lot ripening at once now. It means the chickens are getting their fair share of them. That's good because once they get soft at all the fruit flies are insane. Any tips for getting rid of fruit flies? Blech.
They are so bad that even when I pick fruit that still needs to ripen to bring inside the next morning we a couple in the house again.
I'm not getting enough to can, and it's just a little too much to keep up with for fresh eating. The quality of the fruit isn't as good in years past, but the quantity makes up for that. They still taste incredible cooked with a little cinnamon on top.
This solidifies my thoughts on taking out the second peach tree. It's just not producing much at all and it's not healthy. I'd rather take it out and replace it with a pollinator for my unknown variety of plum. Then again I could end up with 2 trees that don't produce plums. HA! That would stink. The plums bloom after the peaches have set fruit, so timing wise we'd move from strawberries in February to March and April blueberries, then April/May peaches & figs and May/June plums and guava. After that it's blackberries, persimmons and pomegranates. My garden would finally be set for March-September with perennial fruits. Whoot!
Now, waht will give me fruits in November, December and January here? The citrus is just too hard with the greening around here. I still have 3 trees but only 1 is capable of producing good fruit, and even so it' son my porch so it doesn't get pollinated well unless it blooms on the weekend. LOL
Well, make sure you stop by Daphne's Dandelions to see what is being harvested all over the world, and what people are doing with those harvests. Have a great week!
See you soon!
Barbie~
Oh man...so much glorious fruit!!! Congrats on your harvests! Also, I love how you have your perennial fruits all laid out! Super smart :-) I'm going to have to figure out how to implement something like that here...thanks for getting my wheels spinning!
ReplyDeleteYou're making me hungry talking about all that fruit! Peaches and blueberries, how sweet is that? We're having some peaches from the freezer tonight.
ReplyDeleteI love that you have your garden set up for each harvest of fruit following the other. I will have to plan better for staggered harvests when we move to the land we are aiming for.
ReplyDeleteOh wow. If I could get that many blueberries I'd be a happy person. Fruit here starts in later May with our strawberries. Though we don't have nearly as many types as you do.
ReplyDeleteI am so envious of the variety of fruits you can grow in your area, how I would love to have guava and persimmons growing in my backyard but it is not feasible given our climate.
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