Picking Blueberries

One of the things I love about summer in this part of the country is the plethora of fresh berries. Strawberries in May transition to blueberries and blackberries in June and July. There are several pick your own strawberry farms around and of course I have my favorite, but the strawberry season is over now. Blueberry farms are little more scarce; however, there is one down the road from where we live that never ceases to produce the most wonderful berries. Due to the unseasonably warm temperatures this past winter, the berries are in a week or so early, which meant it was time to head to the farm!

Saturday morning, temperatures in the 70s, clear blue skies - a perfect day for berry picking. Hubby and I headed down to the farm with our buckets in hand. As we were walking out to the bushes, we passed several people with overflowing buckets. One couple mentioned it was so easy! We couldn't wait to start picking!

The bushes on the ends of the rows were fairly picked over, but there were lots of green berries which meant there would be lots more to come this year. We chose a row and headed about halfway down before starting to poke through the bushes. What we saw were some of the biggest and most beautiful blueberries! We barely had to touch them and they fell off in our hands. Huge clumps of 8-10 berries at a time, some the size of a quarter! We couldn't help but try a few while we worked. We had to make sure they were ok for eating right?? I couldn't believe how sweet and juicy the berries were! These are definitely going to make for some great recipes.

Can you believe how many berries there are??

Perfect berries!

One full bucket!

It didn't take us long to fill two buckets with berries. Then it was off to weigh the berries and pay for them ($3.00/lb). In all we had about 11 pounds of berries. Not a bad haul for about 30 minutes of work! I'm really not too concerned about their price since there is no way I'm going to find berries like these in the grocery store. Not to mention that spending a morning picking berries with my best friend is one of the best dates in the world so it was well worth the cost.

Now I've got to get these all processed! I'm planning to do some freezing and some drying with this batch. I'll definitely keep some fresh for the next week or so (until we go again next weekend most likely) to have for breakfast with oatmeal and I might just try my hand at a homemade cobbler. I'm tempted to try making jam, but I've never made or had blueberry jam so I'm a little hesitant. In any case, these are a great batch of berries so I'm sure that whatever I decide to do with them, it'll be fantastic!