Seasonal Ontario Food

Blueberries start off small and greenish; as the season progresses they become larger and whiter. Then, suddenly, some of them apparently double in size and turn blue. Does that mean they are ripe? Could be, although many of them then need to sit and ripen some more for best flavour. We have discovered that the best way to pick blueberries is to pull them very, very gently - if they don't come right off, they need longer. Nelson in particular wants to sit for quite a while at the blue stage before coming off. Nelson is a sturdy bush with good, upright stems. 

Arlen is a more delicate bush. The stems tend to arch and if they are really loaded they can drag on the ground. You can see we have placed some stakes around it to help hold them up. We are willing to do this, because it is well worth the trouble. Those stems were just loaded with amazing berries. 

While neither Nelson nor Arlen were producing with the earliest berries, they both started in early August, and are still producing.

This one is Jelly Bean. (Actually, it's 2 Jelly Beans.) One is over, the other is about half-picked. We picked this one up in the parking lot of our local grocery store. It is marketed more to urban and casual gardeners than serious growers, perhaps because it is a dwarf bush, maxing out at about 2 feet tall. It's described as being just as much an ornamental plant as a source of fruit, and indeed, it's very pretty and turns red in the fall. Before then, new growth is an attractive lime shade (you can see some) and regular mature leaves are a nice bluish green. However, it produced more berries than any others that were not Nelson or Arlen and they really are extremely tasty. They started to ripen a bit earlier than Nelson or Arlen, but only by a few days.

I understand blueberries can be successfully grown in containers (the shallow roots help, I guess) and while I have not tried it, this is one that I think would work well for that.

And finally, I am recommending this one, who's name I don't remember. I suspect it's either Elliot or Aurora - I think perhaps Elliot, which sounds more familiar - but both are popular late-fruiting blueberries. We got this one at Whiffletree, but they are not carrying either of those at the moment. Whatever it is, like Jelly Bean it's a solid second tier in terms of quantity produced, but unlike Jelly bean it does not really even start ripening until the last few days of August and continues well into September. We are really reluctant to say goodbye to our daily bowl of fresh blueberries and we are so happy to have this one to keep us going a little longer. 

So there you are; four(ish) excellent blueberry varieties. I'm saying for the home garden, because they do all produce over a fairly extended period of time. I suspect this is not a great feature for commercial growers who want to go in like a swarm of locusts and strip the bushes all at once, but for the home grower it is ideal. Twenty minutes of picking every second day kept us well supplied with berries, over a good solid 3 months. I even made a batch of jam and 2 pies to freeze. That helps console us for the fact that the season is coming to an end; that and the hope that next year will be even better.