a much better berry year
I have heard a couple of people locally complain that they are still waiting for summer to arrive. Me, I say it has been here for 70 days, and that it has been wonderful. Why 70 days? because that is the number of days it has been since temperatures dropped below zero C. Why wonderful? Because temps have been mostly ranging between 15 and 20 C, and it hasn't gotten unpleasantly hot yet, and we have had a good mix of rain and sun. The strawberries seem to agree--they didn't like last summer's two weeks of 35 C temps and not much rain*. This year the berries are more numerous, and more than twice the size of what they managed to produce last year, and this makes me happy.
Hopefully the raspberries will also do well, though it still seems to be too early for them, judging from the few bushes near the strawberries. The rest of the raspberries are down on the lower part of the property, with the mosquitoes, so I haven't checked them yet. I should also take a walk out to the forest to see if there are any blueberries yet...
*to be fair, they didn't like having been transplanted last spring, either, but they would have liked having been plowed under even less, we we moved them anyway before taking the plow to the field.
Edited to add: Yes, there are blueberries out there. The nearest patch was only a 7 minute walk from my door. However, just now they are so jealously guarded by viscous mosquitoes that I was only able to pick a large handful of them before being forced to retreat--this despite the fact that I made certain to bundle up in jeans, heavy long sleeves, and a shawl wrapped around my head and neck--since they couldn't get anything else, they flew into my face and behind my glasses till I gave up. Perhaps another day.
Hopefully the raspberries will also do well, though it still seems to be too early for them, judging from the few bushes near the strawberries. The rest of the raspberries are down on the lower part of the property, with the mosquitoes, so I haven't checked them yet. I should also take a walk out to the forest to see if there are any blueberries yet...
*to be fair, they didn't like having been transplanted last spring, either, but they would have liked having been plowed under even less, we we moved them anyway before taking the plow to the field.
Edited to add: Yes, there are blueberries out there. The nearest patch was only a 7 minute walk from my door. However, just now they are so jealously guarded by viscous mosquitoes that I was only able to pick a large handful of them before being forced to retreat--this despite the fact that I made certain to bundle up in jeans, heavy long sleeves, and a shawl wrapped around my head and neck--since they couldn't get anything else, they flew into my face and behind my glasses till I gave up. Perhaps another day.