Blueberries!

G'day!

I'm still picking blueberries and still enjoying it. There are 1500 southern highbush shrubs at Harris Creek Blueberry Farm most of which were planted 25 years ago. The guy who started the farm got the seedlings free because the Tasmanian government was experimenting to see how well blueberries grow in Tasmania. The native soil is very sandy so it was amended and then planted with several varieties of blueberries. The bloke (Aussies use the word bloke regularly) farmed them for about 10-12 years but a fire 12 years ago burned out several properties in this area. Although the bird netting melted, the bushes survived. During the 5 years after the fire, the Australian bush tried to reclaim the cultivated land.

Julie Harris, my boss, bought the property about 7 years ago and resurrected the farm. She built a straw bale house and threw up some other structures including the wwoofing accommodation/garage, the outhouse, and the shower room. With a lot of hard work, she's built herself a really nice place here. The berries are a full time job for about 3 months from January to March and part time the rest of the year.

Harris Creek is a commercial blueberry business and the berries are sold to grocery stores locally and in Melbourne. The berries are organically grown and the idea is to handle them as little as possible from the bush to the customer. They are packed into little clamshells just like what we have in America. They are called punnets here. 125 grams (1/8 kilo) usually sells for $6 in grocery stores. 1 kilo is 2.2 pounds. 35+ oz/8 so 4.5 oz = 125 grams. Regular price for 6 oz clamshells in America is about $5. I can't do the math (ok, I don't want to do the math) but it seems to fit my theory that food in Australia is roughly 30% higher. The berry "seconds", not quite ripe or a little too ripe or not pretty enough, are sold in kilo packs to jam makers.

It's nice that the bushes are about 6' high so berries are within reach. But the bushes were planted 2 meters apart instead of the now recommended 3 meters apart because they were an experiment. So the bushes have grown into each other and there is not much room between the rows. Additionally, there are several varieties of blueberries. Some berries are large and round (Denise), some are really small and round. Others are squat and flat whilst (Aussies really say that word!) others are ovoid. Two or three sections are planted primarily with one variety of berry whilst most of the patch is intermixed.

Picking Berries
Picking blueberries is a little more complicated than it sounds. Blueberries do not continue ripening once they've been picked. Ripe blueberries are soft and sweet with no hint of tartness. Almost ripe berries are soft with a slight tartness. Less ripe berries are tart and cannot be included in first quality fruit. Blueberries grow in clusters. On some varieties, the berries on a particular cluster ripen pretty much all at once. On other varieties, berries ripen randomly; you could have several ripe berries, one at the top, middle, and bottom of the cluster. You can't tell ripeness by color because even if the part of the berry you see looks blue, it may not be fully ripe yet. And some berries don't get a bloom (powdery coating) on them.

Basically, you can tell if a berry is ripe if it looks "soft". Huh?!! What do you mean "looks soft"?! I can't explain it. You have to look at a lot of berries to be able to see it. If a berry looks soft but you're not sure, you can look at the bottom of the berry. If there is any tinge of red in it, it is not ripe. If it is totally blue, you can try to see if the top of the berry is totally blue. If it is, it is ripe. Also, you can sometimes tell by touch. Ripe berries are soft. But it is time consuming to look at the bottom and top of each berry before you decide whether to pick it or not. And of course, there are the exceptions. One variety, large and round Denise, can still be slightly red when it is ripe. So in the beginning, you pick slow and eat a lot of your mistakes. Pretty soon, you start seeing what "soft" berries look like and you get faster. So experience counts. I'm getting pretty good at it.

One last thing about the berries. Most varieties can be picked by rolling them off the cluster into your palm. There, you can inspect them for ripeness, take the stems off and pour them into the appropriate bucket. Denise, however, must be pulled/plucked from the stem because if you roll them, the stem causes a tear in the fruit. Ugly, second quality.

From the Bush to You
Each picker lines two 1 kilo buckets with a plastic bag and then ties the buckets around their waist with a rope. Most of the berries hopefully go into the good bucket. When that bucket gets full, we pull the the bag out, tie the handles close and put the bag under the last bush we picked. When we have 5 bags full, we gather up the bags and go back to the styrofoam box we brought out with us. We transfer our berries into the five 1 kilo plastic bins (big clamshell bottoms). A long styrofoam divider goes on top of those kilos. Each styrofoam box holds 10 kilos.

The berries then get sorted, weighed and packed, boxed and then chilled. The punnet (clamshell) weighs 11 grams and the scale is tared to reflect that. The sorter basically makes sure that each berry is ripe and looks good and then pours them into the punnets. The weigher makes sure each punnet weighs between 127 and 130 grams and closes each punnet carefully, not squishing any berries. The weigher packs the punnets into box flats of 12 ready to be shipped and writes the date packed on the side of each box. The flats are stacked onto a pallet in the cold room until 144 flats are accummulated and then Lisa, Jules' partner, delivers them (somewhere) in her van.

Berries on the bottom row are riper

 Four french wwoofers were here from Monday through Friday. They've been picking fruit for the past month. They've picked nectarines, apricots, apples and cherries. They said that blueberries are much easier to pick than any of the other fruit. They are much quicker than Sven (from Sweden) or me picking almost twice as much fruit. But they are not very careful, with lots of berries on the ground and some unripe berries in their boxes. They picked so fast, they picked themselves out of a job. All the bushes with ripe fruit are picked. Jules doesn't have any other work for them to do, so she asked them to move along. Sven and I are going through the bushes again to pick ripe berries that might have been missed. We start on another variety of berries, Birgitta, tomorrow. That means I'm gonna have to eat a lot of mistakes until I figure out which berries are ripe.

I will never look at blueberries the same way again.
Cheers!

Cyn