We always freeze a bunch of Blueberries that we can use later.
We ran out about a month ago so we bought some fresh Blueberries at the supermarket.
All of the fruit came from Chile in several different brands.
They were all terrible - too sour to eat for breakfast.
Then we tried a brand of frozen Blueberries from NC. The package called them “local” but they were grown over 200 miles away, but at a farm that I recognized.
Fabulous Blueberries ! Probably better than my frozen homegrown Blueberries.
I’m done with Blueberries grown in another part of the world!
Im with you on that! Our northern highbush are the best. I got some Turkish berries cause theyy were on sale. No wonder… tough and leathery, not good flavor, wondering about pesticide use.
Fo a couple of weeks there were good fresh berries from peru.
I’m eating my frozen blueberries on top of oatmeal too. What brand of frozen wild Blueberries do you buy. Last batch I tried was not sweet. I don’t add sugar to my steel cut oats so I need the Blueberries to provide the sweet.
yep. Wyman’s always. esp. the smaller lowbush ones. very sweet. i worked for them out of the barrens in Cherryfield the fall after i got out of the Army. i still got about 15lbs frozen from mine last summer. honeyberries are great in oatmeal and yogurt also.
when available i also buy circle b farms berries out of Ft. Fairfield at shop n’ save. before i had my own we used to go pick our own there. he grows mostly Patriots for their production.
The blueberries from NC are THE best blueberries I have ever eaten, fresh or frozen. I agree with you. Every time I buy the blueberries grown in other parts of the world, Chile seems to be the most common one around these stores, the blueberries are sour and if they are ripe they really have no taste. I have stopped buying them no matter how they look in the package.
My daughter lived in NC for a few years. She and I went to the Blueberry Festival in Burgaw NC one year. It was a great time. A really small town and a great little main town area to have the festival in. Those blueberries were fantastic. I brought some back home from there. My wife had to stay home to work so she did not get to go. She even said they were the best blueberries she had ever tasted. So if I can find the NC blueberries I buy them in the stores.
Where did you get the frozen blueberries? What brand are they? If I can find there here I will buy some. I miss those great blueberries. If I bake and need blueberries I always use frozen ones.
Now I have a craving to eat some NC blueberries.
were those southern rabbiteye blues you ate from N.C Mike? i imagine a blueberry from the south must be a completely different animal than the ones up north. ive never eaten a southern blueberry. Maine is known for its quality blueberries. just curious of the differences between the 2. i refuse to buy fruit or produce from other countries if i can get it from U.S sources. why i freeze mine for times its not available in the stores.
I’m curious about that too Steveb4. I love the rabbiteyes I grow here in Alabama but I think they are seedier than northern grown berries. Most people like them but I’ve had a few people say they are more sour than what they are used to (probably because I don’t leave them on the bush as long?) and they don’t like them in smoothies as much as store bought because of the extra seeds.
Most commercial Blueberries grown in NC are highbush. Lots of Rabbiteye Blueberries grown by small farms like mine but the big boys grow and pack highbush.
It’s not well known but not too long after the commercial Blueberry industry got started in the pine barons region of New Jersey the largest Blueberry farm in the country was located in southeast NC growing the same varieties as in NJ. It’s an interesting story discussed in the attachment below
I believe rabbiteyes do have more seeds and also tougher skins compared to highbush. Unfortunately highbush do not do well in much of NC.
I’m lazy- and love fresh blueberries. I froze mine a few times and found they were no better (maybe worse- I didn’t freeze them quick enough maybe?) than frozen from the market, so now we buy frozen blueberries out of season and in season eat so many blueberries we’re almost dying the facilities blue. (But we just moved so I probably won’t get a decent crop from the 10 just planted last fall.)
blueberries freeze best immediately after picking. i dump them onto sheet pans and into the chest freezer they go. it would be hard to harvest and freeze quickly enough in AL before they went mushy. maybe put them in a cake pan only a few inches deep then go freeze them . repeat until done. i never harvest mine unless the temps are under 70 here.
maybe put your cake pan in the freezer 1/2hr. before you go pick? if you got 2 rotate them out. i put wax paper on the bottom of my sheet pans so the berries dont stick also. they pour right out into 1gal. freezer bags and keep well over a year.
They were delicious. I had Maine blueberries for years and years. My next door neighbor went to Maine every year just to get blueberries. They would get 5 gallon buckets full of them and bring them back. I would buy one bucket from her and freeze most of them. I do not remember them ever tasting as good as the NC blueberries.
I agree with you about buying fruit from other countries. The only one that you have no choice is bananas. No USA grown bananas that I have seen in any store.
Great story about the blueberry being grown there in NC. That makes sense why Burgaw has the Blueberry Festival, it is there in Pender County. Those blueberries taste amazing from there. Even the local Aldi’s in Wilmington, NC carried fresh blueberries from there. Lowe’s, another local grocery store carried the local blueberries. WalMart didn’t and Food Lion didn’t carry them.
esp. the smaller lowbush ones. very sweet. i worked for them out of the barrens in Cherryfield the fall after i got out of the Army. i still got about 15lbs frozen from mine last summer. honeyberries are great in oatmeal and yogurt also.