Day 207: When I put in my blueberry bushes, I selected "mid-season" varieties using the logic that the pollinators would not be around at this altitude for early-season types. Now I am beginning to wonder if I should have bought late-season plants instead. Last year, I got enough berries for snacking, far short of what I envision as the eventual yield. The bushes are still young...or rather they are new to the "blueberry pen" outside my kitchen door. One was a sickly plant which had been shaded out in another location after losing its partner to similar circumstances. I moved it two years ago and added a second variety beside it for cross-pollination. It has perked up amazingly well, and both plants are covered with buds. A third bush is dwarf and self-fertile; it bore a handful of large, sweet berries last year (its first year in my garden).
As of this writing, all three bushes are lavishly adorned with pink buds, but there is a distressing absence of pollinators, and I can hardly give each blueberry flower the same reproductive assistance I'm providing to the Akebias. Transferring pollen from one flower to another on the tip of an artist's paintbrush is time-consuming! That said, we have a few warm days on the roster and the blueberry buds are not yet open. Perhaps all the elements necessary to provide a good yield will still manage to come together at the proper moment.
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