Terry Cowgill

Sorry, No Blueberries To Spare

August 14, 2006 on 11:11 am | In Main, Scenic Photos |

I went out into my backyard yesterday to my blueberry bushes, expecting to pick a bunch and feast on them that night or this morning for breakfast.

But instead of the hundred I expected, I barely managed to get 15 or 20. And I don’t think the birds have been stealing them — not anymore than usual anyway. Even the berry bunches behind the black netting were sparse.

Could it be that my ever-curious and berry-munching daughter has been picking them on the sly? I don’t think so. For one thing, she denies it. And for another, there is a paucity of berries even on the upper sections of the bush that are out of her reach.

Has anyone else out there had a similar experience? I suspect it could be all the rain we had this spring and into July and possibly the lack of sunshine that goes along with all that precipitation. Or perhaps, as Fred Baumgarten would say, it’s simply one of those natural phenomena for which there is no logical explanation.

This photo is of the bush in my backyard. As you can see, where normally there would be a ripe cluster this time of year, there were only a few individual fruits and most were still green or were just beginning to turn purple. Sometimes in years past we have had such a bumper crop that I invite friends and neighbors over to help themselves. This year I am hoarding the precious things.