Chapter 2:  Pruning

Every year we prune the blueberries just a bit. Cut out the dead wood, the annoying buckthorn, give the new sprouts at the base some more space and light and trim the height a bit so they don’t grow too tall.

Our patch has 6 varieties of blueberries, and even in bud form you can tell the difference. Big buds equal big fruit later on and the little buds turn into intensly flavored little blueberries. The buds appear at all different times too. The larger ones are the first to come out when the sun gets warm, and the little ones were just appearing when we went out at the beginning of May. Those will be the ones to give us blueberries as late as September if there is enough rain over the summer.

So the timing has to be just right - early enough that the larger buds don’t bloom yet but late enough for the smaller ones to develop. And this year that time came quite late. Last year we were pruning by the third week in March, and this time is was almost 5 weeks later. But just when you think Spring will never come, it does, and there were all those lovely fruit buds showing us what to prune and what not.