Why are blueberries grown in the South bland while those grown in the North are tart and tasty? Different cultivars or different climate? I live in North Carolina but will not plant blueberries because I have never tasted a blueberry grown south of New Jersey that tastes good. I have had a few huckleberries from North Carolina and they were great.
Cheers,
Karl W., Eastern North Carolina
Karl,
The blueberries grown here in Florida are yummy! You might want to have your soil tested. Plants grown in the proper soil and are getting enough nutrients/sunlight/water should be bearing tasty fruit.
Patrick
Blueberries supposedly need winter chill. I always wanted to grow them, but for years, there was no variety that would do well, say, in So.Calif. Eventually, I understand, a variety was developed, but I had lost interest, so never tried it.
Would be interesting to hear from a food scientist what it is that makes Northern berries so much tastier.
I devour them by the bushel when they come in from Canada and Oregon. Starting to come in from S.America too.
Persephone
I don't know why, but I do know that the small amount I consume at high altitude in the Northern Cascades are infinitely better than the ones I get in the store - or even the ones I get from the Blueberry farms that dot Bellevue/Seattle.
Note I said small amount - plants above 5,000 feet have enough trouble without having to worry about humans eating all their offspring.
"Eigenvector" expounded:
Our home in Maine is in a pine barren (as I've mentioned before). About 2 acres are in wild .low-bush blueberries, planted by Mother (as in nature). Today I picked probably 2.5 lbs before the horrendous thunderstorms forced me inside. We do very little for them, other than removing competitive growth. Now that hubby isn't up there fulltime we've just purchased a DR brush cutter to try to get things under more control (the sweet fern, low growing junipers and poplars love the same soil and will shade out the blueberries).
These berries are the tastiest things, a pain to pick, but well worth the effort! Now for some blueberry jam making......
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