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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Blueberries!!!!

I was looking through my images today and found this one, taken July 4th, when the blueberries stared to ripen. I had intended to post it to the blog but never did. I have a 'Sunshine Blue', which is a self-fertile dwarf blueberry, who I keep in a large pot. It is an easy to grow variety. Its not a very big bush (and is not very mature at that!) but it had a good crop of berries this year that were most tasty.

Now and then I fantasize that I'd like to plant my whole yard in blueberries and make dry blueberry wine. Two years ago while vacationing in Bar Harbor, ME, we picked up a bottle of locally made, oak aged, dry blueberry wine from the
Bartlett estate. mmmm...good stuff. Unfortunately you can only get it in Maine. Wish I could get it here in Maryland. Unlike many non-grape wines, it wasn't cloyingly sweet. Instead it was more like the best Merlot ever. If you're ever in Maine, do yourself a favor and get a case of the stuff!! (and drop one off at my house! thx!)

4 comments:

Cindy said...

Do you leave your potted blueberry out for the winter or bring it in ?

Julia said...

Hi Cindy,

I leave it out year round. Blueberries grow wild at least as far North as Maine. Even an unusually cold Maryland, amplified by living in a pot, wouldn't come close to that. It is funny to see it outside, little bitty sticks in a pot with a little snow cap.

We also get plenty of rain in the winter, so I don't need to worry about watering it.

swamprad said...

Down in South Mississippi, there are blueberry fields galore, including next door to my family farm, the Swamp. Every June, we pick blueberries by the gallon. I've always wondered about making blueberry wine, and am very interested to hear about your experience. If I'm ever in Maine, I will indeed look for it!

ryc on the forum: This weekend, I discussed labels with Ernie, and am going to follow his tips--maintaining a database on Excel, merging the pertinent info into Word, and printing out labels on weatherproof Avery labels, then affixing them to chunky labels from Hummert.

Julia said...

Interesting. Where is that thread?
I use excel, but I want to setup something better with phpMyAdmin. However, I'm too dense to figure out how to get it to run on my mac. I know it can be done, just not by me!