Living With Gramps - Blueberries, Basil, and Bees
My grandparents used to harvest a lot of blueberries. They had seventeen bushes in all. Their freezer was filled with carton after carton of frozen blueberries to eat all winter. They put them in cereal and they put them in pies. They put them in pancakes. Once I effectively moved in, it was my job to pick them. We had a lot the first year. My aunt picked some for herself and I packaged some for four of our neighbors. We still had so much left over for ourselves that we got tired of them and the ones on the bottom of the bucket started to mold. I didn’t bother freezing any because there were so many in the freezer already.
Picking blueberries in Slocum is difficult. For one thing, the wind blows all the way across the fields with nothing to stop it until it hits the blueberry branches while I’m reaching for them. Sometimes it is simply too windy to pick.
On less windy days, the birds will get to the berries first. Just three days is enough time for the birds to clean them out. In previous years, my grandparents tried nets and eyespot scares, but the birds were hardly even slowed down.
There are also yellowjackets to contend with, though the problem was nothing like the hundreds of stinging insects of at least six species that covered the grapevines while we attempted to prune them.
When I first got there, it was the end of the season and nobody had picked the grapes. There were several pounds worth. There were almost as many pounds of bees. I was scared to work around them, but my grandfather stepped right in, saying, “They won’t sting you; they’ve never stung me.” Several times, a bee got all up in my face and chased me away, but never stung. Considering how many times in previous years I have been stung while minding my own business, unaware that there was even a bee around, this was a Slocum miracle!
The yard even produced crops not planted and never cared for. Over by the big stump I found some plants that smelled exactly like basil. They even made my fingers smell like basil. The leaves were a little fuzzier and wrinklier than I was used to, so I consulted with my mother in Florida. She thought it was probably wild mint and suggested eating one leaf and waiting to see how I felt. It tasted exactly like basil!
The next day, I made myself some ramen noodles with tomatoes, olive oil, garlic powder, and chopped basil leaves. It was awesome. As the summer passed, the plants matured and gradually started to taste more like mint. This made it less appetizing to put on tomatoes. I also discovered that a chipmunk guarded the area and would chase me off when I got close. It probably had a nest somewhere.
Weeks later, my aunt told me she had once planted some mint in that exact spot very many years ago, but she couldn’t remember what kind.
I also enjoyed cooked dandelion greens from the yard for dinner. The water must be changed at least thrice to get rid of the bitter taste. Then they are good – a bit like spinach.
Clover from the yard went into some of my salads. To me, it tastes exactly like raw green beans.
Then of course, there are the crocuses that burst through the lawn unbidden in April, the sumac and bittersweet that attempted to take over our privet hedge and two of the blueberry bushes, and the bees who nested in a hole in the wall of the house one season. Slocum is full of surprises.
Rhode Island is a nice place if you like plants.