My birds eat apples two months before ripe and grapes a month early. I won't trust them one inch with blueberries. And how do you tell which ones they're eating? One trick is to look at the back side of the berry. That turns dark last. But that's hard to see on some varieties with tight clusters. Furthermore some need a week or several past being dark to lose the tartness. Protect from birds and force yourself to go without berries for a week. Test and if still not ripe enough wait another week. Another suggestion is to try other varieties. Living in FL you have many choices if you get enough chilling. Try Springhigh it tastes great even when still not fully dark and is very early. Sweet, low acid, and great blueberry flavor. Also get a Sweetcrisp which matures later. After you taste it you won't want another except to lengthen the harvest season. I think your Sunshine Blue would ripen last. By then you'd have it figured out.

Nope!this year,mosquitos weren't much of a problem and haven't seen any raccoons around us(they're not far away,though.)Just an elk or two,black bears,deer and cougar.The deer are pushy and dumb,the elk are pissy and the cougar?we don't see them.Life here is in a great balance,lots of berries in season then salmon in a number of nearby streams,so the bears are content.No interaction or problems where we live.Our subdivision has(on average) six acre lots,with ocean and lake views.we may be only a couple of hours away from Vancouver,but,in the winter,we generally see only five cars on our road...a day!And,we know every one of them.So,yeah,life IS good.we are complete. Cheers from a mellow here.

Thanks, Kay. The yellow was in the garden at our last house when we bought it. I liked it so much I brough a clump with we when we moved. I googled Tetrina's Daughter and the info I found said the blooms are 4 inches across. These are more like 6-7 inches! I have been trying to figure out what this yellow is for a long time and have not had any luck. No matter...I LOVE it! Linda

If you spray Sevin on the vegetables, how long do you wait to eat the produce? I have a few JB and just let them eat whatever they are on. But now I am starting to see stinkbugs and a hoard of striped blister beetles. These have to be stopped. The striped blister beetles have a different behavior from the gray BB. Today they were on celosia nothing else, but they had it covered. If I hadn't gone on my walk around the garden this morning, the celosia would have been totally eaten up. When disturbed they run all over. They have already eaten the leaves off some potatoes, but because it is so dry those potatoes were already looking bad.