THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 16, 1996 TAG: 9608150155
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 90 lines
THANK HEAVEN FOR blueberries!
Summer's almost gone, but those wonderful morsels let the taste and feel of the season linger on and ease you gently into fall.
The sapphire gems are hanging heavy on the bushes at Pungo Blueberries Etc. on Muddy Creek Road and should be available in quantity through Labor Day.
In no time at all you can pick enough berries for a homemade pie. Add another few pounds for a batch of blueberry jam and then several more pounds for the freezer. That way you can bake blueberry muffins in January and recapture the taste of summer for one fine breakfast moment.
``People are picking 15 to 20 pounds in an hour,'' said Juanita Burns, who owns Pungo Blueberries with her husband, Robert.
Picking blueberries is a great activity for young and old alike because the berries are so accessible, Burns said. Because berries cover the bushes you don't have to stoop over, kneel down or stretch up.
The rows between the bushes at Pungo Blueberries are wide enough that even a wheelchair can roll right on through, Burns said.
For those who don't want to walk back into the fields, the Burnses will drive you in a golf cart. That way the picking is easy even when babies or elderly parents are along for the fun.
The blueberries almost drop off the bush. Just roll your fingers gently over the berries and the ripe ones come free in your hand or land with a satisfying plop in your bucket.
``The blueberries taste better than they have all year,'' Burns said. ``The later fruit is always sweeter.''
Because the strawberry season is so short, customers have a hard time believing that blueberry season lasts into September, Burns noted.
``So many people say, `Are you sure you still have blueberries?'
``And we say we have more than ever and when they get here, they look and say, `My Lord, where did they all come from?' ''
The Burnses can count on blueberries right up to Labor Day because they grow a late-season variety called powder blues, which are at their best now.
``That's the last ripening variety of ours,'' Burns said. ``The powder blues form on the bush more in clusters and ripen more altogether.
``It's awesome!'' she added. ``They're hanging like grapes.''
The number of blueberries also is helped by the huge bird netting that the Burnses have erected over their powder blues and other varieties. By this time in the season, the robins have caught on to all the free meals at Pungo Blueberries. Robins love blueberries even more than people do.
``Up front, where we have no netting, the berries are all gone,'' Burns noted.
And the rain hasn't dampened anyone's spirits. People come to the fields with umbrellas and raincoats made out of trashbags, she said.
``We even had people standing in water picking when the fields were flooded in July,'' Burns added.
When you go, take your own containers for picking. The berries are priced at $1.20 a pound.
Blueberries will keep up to two weeks in the refrigerator, Burns said, and up to two years in the freezer. In either case, don't wash them until you use them.
Burns sells her blueberry jam at the stand, too, along with other condiments like elephant garlic jelly or vinegar that she makes from the big fat elephant garlic that she and her husband also raise at the blueberry farm.
The Burnses are old hands at growing blueberries, opening the first pick-your-own fields here more than a decade ago. While other pick-your-own blueberry farms have closed for the season, the Burnses are still open because of those powder blues that come on late in the summer and the bird netting that saves the berries for you rather than the robins. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos on cover by L. TODD SPENCER
Callie Shaw...and blueberries...
Staff photos by MORT FRYMAN
Joanie Throckmorton and her 10-year-old son Justin pick and eat
blueberries at Pungo Blueberries Etc. in Virginia Beach.
Vicki Agreste of Chesapeake tastes one of her fresh picked
blueberries. You can pick as much as 15 to 20 pounds of the sapphire
gems in an hour.
Photos by L. TODD SPENCER
Megan Shaw can't resist eating some blueberries as she picks them at
Back Bay Blueberry Farm.
Tony Swoope of The Back Bay Blueberry Farm helps Mary Alcox weigh
out her blueberries she hand picked.
Photo
Juanita Burns by CNB