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SE Michigan U-Pick blueberry season is here starting July 5-7 2012

From the Dexter Blueberry Farm's email notice:

Dexter Blueberry farm is Opening Thursday July 5 2012 for you to pick blueberries.

The early berries are ready, Blue-Ray and Blue-Crop varieties. These berries tend to be larger, slightly tart and delicious. The picking will be good to excellent. By July 16 the Jersey will be ready (need rain) and they are delicious and sweet. The crop this year is huge. We expect picking to be Fantastic by the third week of July and through the season. We expect the season to last through the third week of August.

dexterblueberry.com

The Blueberry Patch in Grass Lake is opening Saturday July 7 2012:

http://www.tothbros.com/blueberry.html

We will be open 9am-7pm, 7 days a week beginning Saturday July 7th.

Sodt's Berry Farm (Arborwiki link) also brings berries to the Ann Arbor Farmers Market.

 

Dexter Blueberry Farm opens July 19, 2011

From their email; their web site shows the July 20 date.

We will open a day earlier on Tuesday July 19. The early berries are ready and the Jersey expected in August.

The blueberry crop that I'm watching is the Upper Peninsula wild blueberries; the report from my source (i.e. my mom) is that they need rain.

Early July berry picking report, 2011

U-Pick Strawberry season in the Ann Arbor area is over; it ended June 29 at Rowe's, and June 26 at Whittaker's.

Juneberries are still on the trees, but they are overripe and best left for the birds.

Mulberries are out in full force on the trees and on the sidewalks. Look down for black blotches, then look up for ripe berries.

Blackberries and black raspberries can be found in parks or in the yards of helpful neighbors. 

Wasem's has U-pick red and green gooseberries, red and black currants, and tart (sour) cherries, starting July 7. Not everything is always available depending on ripening, call ahead for details.

Dexter Blueberry Farm is expecting to open July 20, according to their email; the web site says July 25.

See Real Time Farms for more details on local produce. If you have any spare berries, let me know. 

Basil and blueberry recipes, theme and variations

According to the search logs, it's season for both. Here's a bunch of recipes that use both. The common third ingredient is citrus, either lime or lemon, either in the recipe or served as the with.

Lemon cupcakes with blueberry basil filling.  from the blog A Good Appetite:

Blueberry Basil Sauce 1/3 cup frozen or fresh blueberries 1 T water 1/2 t lemon juice 1 1/2 T granulated sugar 6 large basil leaves, chopped

Blueberry, basil and rum cocktail, Art of Drink:

Muddle basil, mint, sugar and lime juice in base of a shaker glass. Add blueberries and continue to muddle. Add rum and ice and shake. Fill collins glass with ice and strain muddled rum mixture into the glass and top with club soda. Garnish with a lime.

Blueberry basil ice cream, Washington Post:

Combine the blueberries, basil leaves and 1/4 cup of the sugar in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the berries collapse and yield their juices. Transfer to a blender and let it cool there for 30 minutes.

Grilled chicken with blueberry basil salsa, Martha Stewart:

Place 2 cups blueberries in a food processor; pulse until coarsely chopped, about five times. Transfer to a medium bowl, and add onion, jalapenos, lime juice, and 1/4 teaspoon salt; stir to combine. Add basil, cilantro, remaining cup blueberries, and oil; stir to combine.

Given this collection, you should be able to create many more variations.

2009 u-pick blueberry report for the Dexter Blueberry Farm

first u-pick blueberries in the area from dexter blueberry farm; here's the email they sent out.  you will want to go to their web site and join their mailing list if you want to get more.

blueberries arrive.  

the web site says "The price of berries /lb. is $1.60/lb".  this compares with $40 for 10# at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market.  

--

dexterblueberry.com

Early picking opportunity.

We will open for you to pick blueberries starting Friday July 17. Bring some friends too.

 

The early berries are ready, Blue-Ray and Blue-Crop varieties. These berries tend to be larger, slightly tart and delicious. By the last week of July the Jersey will be ready and they are delicious and sweet. We expect excellent picking from the last week of July through August.

 

It looks to be an outstanding crop due to all the rain and not having a bad frost.

 

See our website for directions and information

 

Thank-you

 

Dexter Blueberry Farm

11024 Beach Rd.  Dexter, MI
Phone:  (734) 426-2900

Mon-Sat: 8:30am-7:30 pm 
Sunday: Noon-6:00 pm

saturday Ann Arbor farmer's market report, u-pick fruit coming up, and what's in bloom

I was at market on Saturday (yesterday) and kept an eye out for fruit and for new things at market.  Here's some details.

Sour cherries were gone; sweet cherries were $5-$6 per quart.
Both Erie Orchards and Sodt's Berry Farm had blueberries for $40 for a 10# lug.
Basil, $1.00 to $1.25 a small bag, or $10/# (organic).
Grandma from Grandma's Kitchen brought 70 dozen eggs and was sold out at noon.

The U-Pick local report from Mark Charles:

Dexter Blueberry Farm's web site says they'll open on July 20. 

Makielski's raspberry farm says "2 weeks"  (about July 25.)

and the field report from the Buhr Park wet meadow from Andy Brush

Today at wet meadow II, I saw the following in bloom:

• Bee Balm
• Black Eyed Susan
• Yellow Coneflower
• Prairie Dack (just getting going)
• Butterfly Milkweed
• Hoary Vervain
• Daisy Fleabane
• Common Milkweed

Blueberry growers facing price pressures

The Capital Press is an agricultural journal for the Western US.  I search it from time to time to get blueberry crop information.  Here's a latest Oregon blueberry assessment cap altered downward

Mitch Lies
Capital Press

SALEM - Faced with downward pressure on price from increased blueberry acreage, the Oregon Blueberry Commission has opted to lower the cap on blueberry assessments.

Oregon blueberry growers, beginning this summer, will pay no more than 1 percent of the value of their crop in assessments.

A list of Oregon blueberry farms is useful if you are in the area during the fresh berry season.

An April 2009 story from the Grand Rapids Press points to a continuing growth in frozen blueberries in storage, in part due to growth of crops in South America.

About 150 million tons of blueberries are now in storage nationwide, said Carlos Garcia Salazar, a small fruit specialist for Michigan State Extension Service's Ottawa County office. That's about double the normal amount for this time of year.

Fresh blueberry prices were above $2 per pound in 2007 and 2008, but this year they will be closer to $1.30 a pound. A pound of processed blueberries could drop from $1.63 to below $1.

"We had bonanza for three or four years," Salazar said. "But that's over.

"We believe that given our holdings and storage some are estimating prices similar to five or six years ago."

One possible direction for this surplus of blueberries is increased use as a dried fruit, in addition to fresh and frozen.  The Kalamazoo Gazette writes about Graceland Fruit, which has innovated in creating cherry and blueberry "raisins"

"We're starting to see a very significant increase in dried blueberries," said Frank Bragg, chief executive of MBG Marketing, a multi-state blueberry cooperative based in Grand Junction, near South Haven.

"Today, 10 to 15 percent of processed blueberries are dried. That's up from about 5 percent two years ago."

A quarter of North America's blueberry crop comes from a four-county stretch of Lake Michigan shoreline between Grand Haven and the Indiana border.

In other news, we had blueberry pancakes for breakfast (yum).

Frozen blueberry price report + Eastern Washington Blueberry Workshop March 2009

As ever I am tracking the blueberry markets in anticipation of summer.

This from the Capital Press: Blueberry stocks in cold storage outpace past years; Berry dealers see bright side in large stocks of fruit

Frozen blueberries are selling at a steady clip, but carryover stocks from 2008's crop are still huge, according to industry experts.

Sales seem to have picked up speed late last year, with warehouse stocks falling by 4 percent in October, 6 percent in November and 7 percent in December 2008, according to the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service.

At 153.7 million pounds, year-end frozen blueberry inventories in 2008 were nonetheless 35 percent higher than in 2007 and 55 percent higher than in 2006.

"The movement has been decent. It's just a lot of fruit that is still sitting in the freezer," said small fruits analyst Rod Cook of Ag-View Consulting.

Cook notes prices for berries are down since harvest time:

"Sometimes it's as big a challenge to get fruit into a freezer as anything else," said Cook. "Some have been so full they haven't been capable of taking additional fruit."

The strong supply has depressed frozen blueberry prices, which now range from $0.80 to $1.05 per pound, he said. "The price has definitely retreated from harvest time, 20 cents or more."

You can hear more on the Oregon blueberry market prospects for 2009 at the Eastern Washington Blueberry Workshop March 12, 2009 in Prosser, WA, free to the first 80 advance registrants.

ps. how do you get the title "Blueberry marketing expert"? sign me up!

Blueberry muffins with cardamom; some recipes, in the hopes that summer will arrive

I'm just going to keep posting about blueberries until I'm sure it's going to be summer again; I think we have a few tubs still in the freezer.

The search is for a blueberry muffin recipe with cardamom, and here's some sample of same, to see what the variety is in the recipes so that perhaps some meta-recipe will emerge.  Do be sure to read the first one through; it's a moving memorial and a story of how we celebrate the end of someone's life.

from Confessions of a Cardamom Addict: Edna's favourite blueberry muffins

After the speeches and video clips we spilled into the reception, its tables laidened with sandwiches and sweets. Bowls of punch were off to the side as were carafes of coffee and tea. But everywhere--and I do mean everywhere- were wicker baskets filled with blueberry muffins. The Laurier catering team was given Edna's favourite muffin recipe (she was known for feeding muffins to visitors) and they made hundreds of them. The recipe was also given to each of us, along with a copy of her favourite poem.


In her own words "I've eaten a lot of blueberry muffins in my day, but none as good as my sister Norma's."

Edna's Favourite Blueberry Muffins
Ingredients
50g soft butter (1/4 c)
125g sugar (3/4 c)
1 egg, well beaten
160g pastry flour (1-1/2c)
1/2 tsp salt
1 dspn baking powder (2 tsp)
150g blueberries (fresh or frozen) (1 c)

• Preheat oven to 375F/190C and line or butter 12 medium muffin cups/9 large muffin cups.
• Sift together flour, salt and baking powder.
• Cream together butter and sugar. Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with milk. Fold in blueberries.
• Fill the tins (at least 2/3 full). Bake for 15-20 minutes or until done.

food.  according to me.  [Unrivaled] Blueberry Muffins

(this one doesn't have cardamom in it, but I will quote the preface to the recipe; you can link to the actual recipe)

After posting Champion Blueberry Muffins, more people have come to this site looking for from-scratch blueberry muffins than, as far as I can tell by the search terms that lead people here, anything else. I've been feeling sort of guilty: that post was such a tease. Unfortunately, blueberries are definitely out of season during these dark days; but maybe you stashed some in your refrigerator last August...

a recipe from amyburns1999 on SparkPeople for Blueberry Cardamom Muffins; it's vegan, should that be relevant to you.  (personally, skip the splenda, but that's me)

These are so delicious you should make a double batch so you can freeze some for later or share with friends. I normally substitute the sugar with splenda for less calories.
45 Minutes to Prepare and Cook

Ingredients

1 cup almonds 2 cups frozend blueberries 2 cups flour 1 cup sugar/splenda 2 tsp cardamom 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 cup vanilla soy milk lite 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

surprisingly - there were not a lot of these recipes that were easy to find on the first go-around; that might have been just because the general rule is "optional: add some other spice to taste".  will report back after I experiment.

2008 cultivated blueberries crop report; 2009 Maine wild blueberry meeting

Pulled from the University of Maine Wild Blueberry Newsletter, January 2009:

Cultivated Blueberries

Total reported cultivated production in the United States reported by the USDA was 191.86 million pounds fresh and 156.8 million pounds processed for a total crop of 348.9 million pounds. In addition British Columbia, Canada had an average estimated cultivated crop of 70 million pounds despite the increase in the acreage.  Michigan/Indiana had 113.8 million pounds which represents a bumper crop and greatly exceeds the 94.6 million pounds harvested in 2007.  In New Jersey the crop was 59 million pounds, which was also slightly ahead of last year's crop of 54 million pounds.  The crop on the Pacific Coast (CA, OR, WA) was reported at 89.1 million pounds which is slightly less than last year’s crop of 91.9 million pounds.  The Southern States’ (AL, AR, FL, GA, MS, NC) crop was 84.5 million pounds, which is considerably more than the 76.1 million pounds in 2007.  The total North American crop (wild and cultivated) is 665 million pounds, which exceeds the 535.8 million pounds harvested in 2007. (Source of US crop data: NASS/USDA, Noncitrus Fruits and Nuts 2008 Preliminary Summary, January 2009, pages 30-32)  See: http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/NoncFruiNu/NoncFruiNu-01-23-2009.pdf

Wild Blueberry Spring Meeting Dates Set

The spring wild blueberry meeting will be held on Wednesday, March 18th in Waldoboro and Thursday, March 19th in Ellsworth from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. and on Saturday, March 21st in Machias from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Details on the location and program will be included in the February 2009 Wild Blueberry Newsletter and on our website www.wildblueberries.maine.edu/calendar.html.