Our honeyberries are now ripe enough to begin our first harvest. Today, Melissa picked about two handfuls to evaluate the flavor. When I saw the berries in a plain white container, I thought they would make a nice holiday picture on one of our red-edged plates.
This year, the honeyberry bushes, newly transplanted, have yielded far more berries than ever before. I suspect strongly that their constricted living quarters were preventing the blossoms from forming berries in past years.
One observation we have made is that the berries that have begun to wrinkle have the best flavor. A second observation is that each bush has berries of slightly different shape. To some extent, that is to be expected, because there are two varieties of honeyberry in our collection. However, the differences in shape are not significant enough to be a reliable indicator of variety.
To paraphrase Thomas Hardy: a vacation on a farm consists mostly of putting off today what will have to be done later. That being the case, the morning chores, this post, and the evening chores are the only accomplishments I intend to make today. The rest can wait.
Happy Fourth of July!
