This is the year of the blueberries. Or at least the blueberry bushes.
See, when we moved from our original tiny starter home to an equally tiny house in a different town, we left behind a few things.
First, our strawberry patch. But that we replaced almost immediately. Soon enough to now be in the years of plenty, where our summers are launched in the bright, juicy reds of fresh strawberries. Our plants have been so prosperous that we are planning to plant runners in another part of the yard. There is no longer loss when I contemplate strawberries.
We also lost our neighbor’s raspberry bushes. Our neighbor who shared with such enormous generosity that the bounty of his crop felt like our own. We haven’t figured that one out yet. Our current neighbors are fantastic but are sadly not gardeners. I’m eyeing my dad’s gorgeous garden and wondering if he’ll notice if I plant a few raspberry bushes among the tomatoes and zucchini and peppers…stay tuned on that one.
But this brings us to the third thing we left behind: our blueberry bushes.
Does anyone else have a plant that takes them back to their childhood? Surely there are other people out there prone to botanically induced flashbacks?
In my world, blueberry bushes are my time machine. One glimpse and I am a kid on a trip to New Hampshire, staying in a family friend’s country house. The house was old, with narrow staircases and cuckoo clocks and a note over the toilet that said if it was yellow, we were to let it mellow, which I found both scandalous and thrilling. Out front there was a country road and across the street, a tiny country library. And on the side of the house, well, there was the greatest glory of all. The blueberry bushes.
In my memory, there are not just a few. There are dozens. Enough for a small child and her older brother to feel enveloped by them. The idea that blueberries could exist in a yard was beyond me until that moment. I grew up in a very Jersey tomato and basil kind of garden existence. This -the blueberry- was so otherworldly. It was Secret Garden level stuff.
So when we started our newlywed garden, and we stumbled upon blueberry bushes, it was like a dream come true. Leaving them behind during our move was devastating. I meant to replace them right away. But they just never made the budget. They got shelved for next year, then next year, then next year…they were almost but not entirely forgotten.
I don’t even know what brought them back to mind. We knew we wanted to move our kids’ sand box. That would free up some more space for plants. And as we contemplated how to use that valuable new space, at some point between discussing wildflowers and rain barrels, I so desperately knew how I needed to fill that space. I needed my blueberries back.
The thing with blueberries is that we probably won’t be able to harvest any this year. If we’re lucky, our bushes will come with like, two blueberries already on them and we can pretend we grew something. But we’ve been at this gardening thing long enough to know that a year or two of preparation is worth the many years of production to come. There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere, right? Oh gardening, how you teach us.