Avoid the long haul blueberry

As the official Spring date is less than a week away it's time to go through the large freezer and see what can be salvaged.  During the summer months we pack away for safe keeping the surplus fruit where we can.  At the end of the hot season you can pick up ordinarily expensive fresh fruit for a really good price.  Blueberries are a really good example.  We started growing them and now know that they are a labour of love, in that you can only pick them individually because they all don't ripen on the branch at the same time.  Who wants a dessert with only two blueberries!  When the local ones start to descend in price I take the opportunity to stash them away in the freezer.  I don't buy fruit out of season if I can avoid it, and I certainly never buy fruit with a passport.  I know how bad I feel after a long haul flight.  Imagine how a blueberry feels? Apples are a really good example.  We're fortunate to be in a place in the world that once was a huge producer of many varieties of applies and to a certain degree, still does.  They are disappearing unfortunately as the big shops don't buy them because they say the demand is not there. The difference in apple varieties is staggering.  Some of the old English varieties are only available at market stalls and it's worth checking them out when they are in season.  They don't keep though.  Someone tell the shops that, please.  They become powdery and tasteless if picked too early and ordered to ripen by some sort of gas, they'll be disappointing and er., gassed!  For many years they coated them in wax to make them shiny, now they sit in large warehouses waiting, waiting, waiting for supply chain to send them to market.  That's why they are tampered with.  Fruit doesn't like to sit around and wait to be eaten.  You've only got to look in the bottom of my fridge to work that out.  Was that a passion fruit once or is it some kind of stone?  But at this time of year we wait patiently for the stone fruits, berries and later, much later the apples.  And the best way to work out when their actual season is, is to plant a tree yourself or shop at the farmer's markets.  Our apple trees are only just beginning to wake up and sprout new growth for blossom.  And as for the blueberries, we're hoping for a bumper crop this year.  At least four anyway.