Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 22 JuneHigh Bush blueberries on 23 June, not one of them ripe: tight clusters of five to ten hanging hard and whitish-green under a faint bloom, a few blushed dull pink on the exposed cheek, each finished with a five-pointed crown of dried calyx.Week of 22 JuneA row of High Bush blueberries after rain on 23 June, the clusters slung along the undersides of the arching wiry branches ten and twenty to a bunch and every berry still hard and pale, a dark wall of woodland closing the background.Week of 29 JuneTwo dozen High Bush blueberries loose on the board on 29 June, no two alike — plump ones next to shriveled matte-black ones, two still blushed dull red around the middle, and the gray bloom rubbed off in patches to the wine-purple underneath.Week of 29 JuneHigh Bush blueberries on 29 June, six of them loose on bare wood with a dark crown pricked into every upper face, five keeping their waxy bloom and one rubbed clean of it so that it reads darker and glossier than the rest in warm light.Week of 29 JuneHigh Bush blueberries on 2 July with every stage in one cluster — creamy white, rose-flushed, mauve, and two gone fully dusty blue — a hand out of focus below steadying the branch and the woodland glinting through behind it.Week of 29 JuneHigh Bush blueberries on 2 July heaped above the rim of a jar just out of the cold, the glass fogged right over so everything below the neck reads as blurred purple behind beaded water, their bloom smeared gray where hands went through them.Week of 6 JulyHigh Bush blueberries on 7 July seen down the whole row, the fruit clustered at every branch tip at three stages at once, and behind the field a lane curving off into hardwood that stands in deep shade under a flat overcast.Week of 13 JulyHigh bush blueberries on 17 July spread one deep to drain, still wet, their silvery bloom mottled and rubbed away in patches and each crown a small puckered scar ringed by the dried calyx, a few reddish-purple ones dull among the blue.Week of 20 JulyA High Bush blueberry on 20 July, tented head to foot in white mesh that peaks over the top growth, its clusters carrying every stage at once from cream-green through pink and dusky rose to matte blue, the woodland closed in dark behind it.Week of 3 AugustHigh Bush blueberries on 7 August, heaped in a glass pitcher until the top ones stand above the rim, gray bloom thick over purple-black skin and fine russet lines scratched across a few — one in the front row still pink-red and unripe.
