Berries are not ripening as expected
As you can guess, it’s June 2nd, and the berries are not ready for picking yet. Honestly, they aren’t much closer than they were last week. The blueberries, in a normal year, are ripe and ready to pick by June 1st and sometimes earlier. So we are hoping that 2021 is just an “odd” year and not an “unfortunate” year. (more on that below)
Blackberries
The blackberries usually ripen a little later than the blueberries by a few weeks. Their normal ripening time is about the second or maybe third week of June so they are still within their normal range of ripening.
Blueberries
On the blueberries, we are hoping that this is just a strange effect stemming from odd weather patterns this spring. If it isn’t, then we may have an issue this year.
In using organic practices, we cannot spray when a problem arises, rather we have to use natural tactics to combat trouble. Several years ago, we started mulching with a thick layer of pine straw every winter to battle an issue with the berries drying up before they ripen. The pine mulch provided a physical barrier layer preventing carryover problems from the previous year.
We don’t have very many pine trees, and buying pine straw is not feasible because it takes trailer-loads to mulch all the berries. So, we have raked it ourselves on various other properties. This past while though, pine straw has become much harder to come by, and this year it just didn’t happen. We are still keeping our fingers crossed that the old issue is not back, and the berries are just late this year.
We will keep you posted
In any event, Mother Nature’s plan is difficult to predict. We just have to wait and see and we will let you know.