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It’s the Wild Maine Blueberry Harvest!

Yesterday I went to pick up our farm subscription (organic, locally grown vegetables) so took the back way around to our drive, and what should appear to my wondering eyes but:

The blueberry field at the end/corner of our road

I’d never before seen the commercial blueberry harvesters.  The old way is to use a “blueberry rake.”  Think of a dust pan, but above the flat base is a set of tines (line a fork) that “rake” the berries and pull the berries but not (in theory at least) the leaves into the pan.   Pan gets dumped into big plastic “flat.”  Well, now I know how the big guys do it….   the field above is about 1/4 mile from the bottom end of our driveway (that’s maybe 500 metres?).  There were several of the harvesters in the field…. here’s a closeup.  Looking carefully, I could see that there is a sweep of some sort on the far side, and the driver in the center was leaning over looking out the far side and down.

The arrows show the vacuum/rake/whatever it is on the left side of the harvester. There appear to be hoses going from next to the driver to the blue box thingie  at the rear left.  The yellow things are plastic bins into which the berries go.

This shot shows (on the right) where there is something on the far side that harvests the berries. On the left you can see a shiny silver metal chute. The berries roll down the chute/funnel into the yellow bin. From the looks of it, when one bin is full, the next one comes down, etc., until the driver has a full load.

Regular store-bought blueberries are big… like the tip of a finger big.  Wild Maine blueberries have SO MUCH more flavor…they are tiny, the size of what is sold as “Petite Green Peas” in the frozen section of the grocery.  I found a great recipe for muffins in Cook’s Illustrated a while ago, and Eli and I love them!  We add frozen raspberries, too!

Cool beans…or maybe I should say Cool Berries!

2 Responses to “It’s the Wild Maine Blueberry Harvest!”

  1. Sherri D Says:

    Only one time in my life in Minnesota, did I ever find a blueberry patch! I lived near Duluth, MN at the time. Those were truly the berry best blueberries I have ever had!!!

  2. Candy from Candied Fabrics Says:

    Maine blueberries (OK, New hampshire and Nova Scotia too) are the ONLY REAL blueberries! I HATE those big fat commercial berries. Ah, blueberries and lobsters…how I miss them so…