Blueberries! and Tomato Stakes

We harvested our first blueberries today! We knew they were close because we had seen Eric, Rachel, and the kids head out there to pick blueberries a few different nights in the past week. We were secretly planning to make a midnight raid if the opportunity didn't present itself soon, but luckily Eric beat us to the punch. We didn't even have to feel guilty! Or stay up that late.

There are five rows of blueberries, and each row is its own variety. They planted varieties that ripen one after the other so that the season of blueberries lasts a little longer. Eric said that they usually are harvesting one or two of the five rows at a time. The bushes that we harvested from today still have several unripened berries (as you can see in the picture above), so we just picked around them. Eric said they don't have much trouble with pests or birds eating their berries. He thinks it's partly because the birds don't find the berries before we put up the net that's in these pictures. That was a pain, but worth it if it keeps the pests away. More berries for me! I'm already thinking about having berries in my granola and yogurt tomorrow morning. They are the closest thing to the intern house so I don't even have to wake up earlier.

Speaking of waking up earlier, we are starting at 7:30am now and going until 6:30pm, adding one more hour to our day. We're up to nine hours now. I didn't notice it too much this week. Well, my stomach usually tells me that she knows when I have to work a half an hour longer, but she adjusts quickly. Or I put a granola bar in my pocket.




Did I ever post a picture of those pesky asparagus beetles? See the chunk they ate out of the asparagus tip? Click on the picture so that you can see it bigger. Okay, I actually thought they were kind of cute, and i couldn't bring myself to squish them as instructed. I handed the ones I caught to Anika. Thanks, Anika.




I hosted a happy hour at my shed a couple weeks ago. See, I got all my stuff in there after all! And all of my coworkers, to boot! Oh, and you can even see my driven-over-waterbottle as wall art if you look closely.

Rachel and the kids spotted this painted turtle laying her eggs in the kids playground last week. She was pretty calm for so many folks standing over her and taking pictures.




The other thing we did today was stake tomatoes. I don't have a picture of our work yet, but I do have a picture of the tomatoes getting rooted into our ground. They are babies now, and I'm sure that they will look a lot different even in a week or two. So more pictures will follow with stakes and big plants...and hopefully some big tomatoes before I head off to grad school in the fall.