Blueberry Protection & Garden Update

So last night I put together my blueberry cage. It is made from five 1/2" PVC 10' pipes and 8 1/2-in Dia 90-Degree PVC Side Outlet Elbows and bird netting. I attached the bird netting with twist ties.

Blueberry & Raspberry Cage

I just finished building my blueberry and raspberry cage. Hopefully this will keep the birds and squirrels away from our berries. 

Fruit Tree & Berries (The Gifts that Will Keep Giving)

We now have a a peach tree and three blueberry bushes. They were all gifts, ones that with proper (but minimal care) will keep on giving year after year. The Reliance Peach tree was a gift from Julia's parents. The Reliance is the variety that the kids helped me choose, one that is known for as a consistent cropper of sweet, juicy, yellow-fleshed, freestone peaches.

The three blueberry bushes were a birthday present to me from Julia. The bushes are three different varieties that will yield fruit at different times, so hopefully giving us a more or less continuous supply of blueberries through the growing season. The Reka is the early season, Bluecrop the mid season, and Darrow the late-mid season.

The kids picked out and then started the seeds for the plants that they chose to grow. Antonio was super excited to start his "Pizza Garden" that our friends the Klein's gave him last summer when we moved away from Georgia. He carefully wrote out all the labels himself for the seeds, which consist of all the main ingredients to make a pizza.

Blueberry Season is Here!

Today we harvested our first blueberries from our two blueberry bushes we have in the yard! The kids were very excited, they had been following the progress of the berries all spring, seeing how they were little green balls, then slowly darkening as they grew. So this morning we (the kids, while I telecommuted from our yard that is) picked 3.64 oz of blueberries. I am thinking that we may expand and get maybe two more bushes next spring, as we will finally have more space. We harvested just over 2 pounds last year from these bushes, and so hopefully we will harvest a bit more now that they are three year old plants this year, but with an additional two, we may be able to grow all the blueberries we eat for the year. We are finally going to move into a house that has a yard, I'll tell you more about that later, but what that means is that I am going to get to restart my garden, but also expand it.

Blueberries

 Last summer our then two year old blueberry bushes gave us over 2 pounds of measured berries (there were many that never made it to the scales, as they went straight into the mouths of Antonio and Julia Belén). It was a joy to have the bushes in our yard.

The kids really got excited about going out and checking the bushes, and watching the progress of the berries, watching as the grew in size, and turned from green to a nice dark rich blue. Once the berries were ready, we had a few weeks where the kids would constantly take little breaks from playing and you would find them elbow deep into the bushes picking juicy snacks.

Easter Garden

Our garden has slowly been coming around as warmer temperatures of spring have finally arrived. Here are pictures around the garden from Easter weekend. Our blueberry bushes have tons of blooms on them, hopefully that means we'll have a decent yield of blueberries this year.

Blueberry Caterpillars

Yesterday morning I noticed that there were a bunch of caterpillars on my Rabbiteye Blueberry. I am not sure what kind of caterpillar they are, but I made the mistake of touching one, and it definitely hurt my fingertip. They have what look like two eyes that are actually white spots on one end, and bristles on each end, and along their bottom.

First Blueberry

Just before our extended weekend vacation, I harvested my first
homegrown blueberry. Yes, you read right, one, solitary blueberry, but
grown in our garden. This was the first year for these two blueberry
plants, so hopefully, their yield will improve with time.

Blueberry & Sweet Alyssum

I sowed some Sweet Alyssum seeds around my blueberries, to act as a living mulch, and attract bees. I am excited, I found out that the Rabbit-Eye Blueberry plant I have is actually native to the area.

Blueberries

This weekend we purchased and potted two blueberry plants. One is a Tiftblue and the other is a Rabbit-Eye Blueberry. I am excited, as Antonio and I love eating blueberries, and I love their little white flowers, and the spectacular red leaves in the fall.