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Pete Tallman Blueberry Bale (Detail) |
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Blueberry bush in 2003, which had been planted directly in an unopened bale of peat moss in 1997. The bale is sitting on the ground for illustration purposes only; normally the bale is placed in a trench so that the top of the bale is flush with ground level and covered with pine bark mulch.
Here’s the story behind the photograph: In the initial planting, varieties Nelson and Elliott produced tasty berries, while variety Patriot produced inedible, unpleasant blueberries — berries were small, sour, and hard — so, in 2002, I removed the Patriot, bale and all, and replaced it with a Blue Ray, which I hoped would have better quality berries. I had intended to break apart the discarded Patriot bale to spread the peat moss around the vegetable garden but I didn’t get around to doing that. The Patriot and its bale were left unprotected, albeit irrigated, during the summer for the benefit of the birds. In autumn 2002, the bush had some beautifully colored foliage, so there was some heavy pruning to bring foliage inside the house for decoration. After a winter without protection, in spring 2003, the bush bloomed heavily, and, perhaps because of the pruning, the developing berries were larger than before. I worried that perhaps I had been too hasty in exhuming the Patriot, so I moved the Patriot back from the vegetable garden to the blueberry trench to give it another chance. During a pause in that journey, the photo was taken to illustrate an upcoming NAFEX Pomona article describing the growing technique. Alas, the summer 2003 crop proved again that the Patriot berries were unacceptable, so Patriot was finally dismantled as originally planned. (Unfortunately, the replacement Blue Ray was later found to have unacceptably plain flavor, so Blue Ray, in turn, was replaced in 2008 by a second plant of Elliott in yet another new bale.) |