Quest for Blueberries

Fresh blueberries, picked in the
morning, washed, and consumed with
breakfast.  Is that too much to ask?

This story begins two years ago when Betty and I began the process of creating a ‘from scratch’ landscape at our new home.  ‘Low- and high-bush blueberries’ were near the top of the list of native plants we wanted.  We ultimately purchased five low-bush blueberries, which we planted above the stone wall at the front of our property.  They have thrived, spread, flowered, and produced mountains of tiny blueberries that have fed the creatures that visit our garden. 

Those low-bush blueberries, unfortunately, are not the topic of this essay.

We also purchased five high-bush blueberry shrubs.  They cost close to $40 each and were already laden with already ripe and ripening fruit when we brought them home.  We planted them in a cluster in our rear garden.  For two weeks, we gorged on sweet, luscious blueberries.  I remember joking at the time that we had picked enough berries off of them to defray about a quarter of their cost.

Blueberry bushes produce
awesome fall colors

Berry season ended.  The shrubs grew.  All was well.  Autumn came and we delighted in the display of autumn color that Vaccinium corymbosum  put on.  It rivaled anything in our garden.

Came the spring of 2016.  It was a drought year and, though we gave adequate water to those five shrubs, we saw few flowers and fewer blueberries.  We wrote it off to dry weather and the reality that pollinators were still just discovering our garden.  All our bushes made it through the year looking healthy.  We considered it a victory.

Two weeks after the last flower, I put
up fencing and netting for protection

The rains returned this spring and our five blueberry shrubs were alive with vibrant, white flowers.  I began to think about protecting the shrubs so we could enjoy our bounty.  Two weeks after the last flowers disappeared, I put up fencing and netting.  Metal posts were driven into the ground and half-inch plastic fencing was placed around the boundary of the shrubs.  Fifty ‘ground staples’ anchored the fencing to deter ground-level incursions.  Quarter-inch netting was spreads across the top to foil fence climbers and avian intruders.

These berries were showing their
first blush of red

I watched as the berries changed from white to green to red-purple.  The first batch needed just a day of additional ripening.  I salivated at the thought.

The next morning, every ripe blueberry was gone.

I inspected the base of the fence.  Where the beginning and end of the fence met, there was a gap where a small animal could have wriggled through.  I wired it closed.  I found areas where a contortionist rodent could squeeze between the fence and the earth. I added more ground staples.

The next batch of berries ripened before my eyes.  The morning I went to pick them, they had vanished.

Every potential point of
entry was reinforced

I reassessed the netting as well as the fencing.  I added bamboo and wooden poles to further make a ground assault impossible.  I added ties to better secure the netting to the fence.

The blueberries are still disappearing.

I spent much of yesterday on our back porch, monitoring my patch.  A crow cawed from a nearby pine tree.  Crows, as we all know, have been known to bend and shape metal with their beaks.  Undoing twist ties is well within their skill set.  A suspicious-looking squirrel loitered in the area but, aware he was under surveillance, made no move for the fence.  A tufted titmouse lit on one of the tall metal stakes but feigned disinterest in the crop below it.  Two mourning doves walked in circles, pecking at non-existent seeds.  A fat chipmunk tried just a little too hard to look like it was much more interested in a random piece of bark mulch than in the blueberries behind it.  One of these creatures – or perhaps all of them – are guilty of stealing my blueberries. 

Chipmunks are the most likely culprit

A few years ago, Betty and I were on a garden tour in the Berkshires.  One of the estates on view had a dozen high-bush blueberries encased in a structure with removable screen panels, built with 4x4’s post-and-beam style, that must have measured twenty feet by forty feet, with seven feet of head clearance and a locked door.  I remember laughing at the time that the cost of building such a cage so outweighed the potential benefit that the payback time must approach infinity.

This morning, looking at the white berries that I am certain will be swiped just before I judge them ripe, I could not help but mentally lay out a variation on that ostentatious Berkshires building.  I could use 2x4’s, and five feet of headroom would be sufficient for my needs…

Afterword:  On Sunday, July 23, I threw in the towel and took down the netting and the fence.  Nothing worked, and I never saw what was getting into the enclosure.  All I know is that I never got a single blueberry from those five plants.  There will be a better plan next year.