potato!!!!!!
Yeah, the wild Himalayan blackberry canes are like little piranhas. There’s a family owned business on the Saanich Peninsula ��(Gobind Farms) that offers a vast assortment of berries, including blackberries. While there are enough wild bushes within easy driving distance that can produce more berries than it's probably safe to eat, they are smaller and no more tasty than the cultivated thornless they distribute through local markets.
After black fly season, and biting fly season, and mosquito season. Or all at the same time INCLUDING blackberries, as in Temagami Ontario this July! Sheesh! It was awful! My son did a 25 day canoe trip north into James Bay and the poor kid never got out of long pants and long sleeves.
I have the solution! See pic....the poor kid never got out of long pants and long sleeves.
-Gnobuddy
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Sissy? Maybe - I’ve picked more than a couple of gallons of wild BB in my time, and I find this particular “thornless” - or maybe that should be “less thorny” - as in “me less thorny, you can pick here a long time”? cultivar larger, firmer and just as tasty.
You got DEET over there for those bugs?
I was lucky enough to have my bro bring down a large zip lock bag of wild blueberries. He picked from the Lake Superior area, none around here, wonderful favour. My girlfriend does not even like blueberries. I do not know too may that do not like them. Had to freeze the ones I could not eat, work great in making purple porridge, small flavour capsules
I recall driving through Maine once, went for a leak at the side of the road, blueberry heaven I wonder why so many blue berries in Maine, soil, not the Cambrian shield? I am sure one of you folks know why
Carlp, you forgot to mention the deer and horse flies, they make the mosq and blackflies look tame I found out I am alergic to deer flies after they chew you enough. I do not know why but if you have wet hair they just love you. There is a trick, you wait til they get tired of buzzing around you, finally land on your head, get ready to chew, wack, your head rings a bit but better than the chew. City slickers have no idea. Bugs 101. Another solution is a bug net from the dollar store.
I was lucky enough to have my bro bring down a large zip lock bag of wild blueberries. He picked from the Lake Superior area, none around here, wonderful favour. My girlfriend does not even like blueberries. I do not know too may that do not like them. Had to freeze the ones I could not eat, work great in making purple porridge, small flavour capsules
I recall driving through Maine once, went for a leak at the side of the road, blueberry heaven
I wonder why so many blue berries in Maine, soil, not the Cambrian shield? I am sure one of you folks know why Carlp, you forgot to mention the deer and horse flies, they make the mosq and blackflies look tame
I found out I am alergic to deer flies after they chew you enough. I do not know why but if you have wet hair they just love you. There is a trick, you wait til they get tired of buzzing around you, finally land on your head, get ready to chew, wack, your head rings a bit but better than the chew. City slickers have no idea. Bugs 101. Another solution is a bug net from the dollar store.
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I have got a raised bed with two decent sized blueberry bushes in it. The normal ground is limestone and red clay so no way in open ground.
One of the bushes has a small number of flowers on it just a couple of weeks after harvesting the fruit. They are on green wood that has not hardened over winter. I am not expecting more than 3 or 4 berries if they set.
I got about 5 pounds of blackberries in spite of the bug attack. The bugs were worse than the nettles and thorns.
One of the bushes has a small number of flowers on it just a couple of weeks after harvesting the fruit. They are on green wood that has not hardened over winter. I am not expecting more than 3 or 4 berries if they set.
I got about 5 pounds of blackberries in spite of the bug attack. The bugs were worse than the nettles and thorns.
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> I wonder why so many blue berries in Maine
It's just a weed. It favors a dryer soil than winterberry, which we have LOTS of, totally wild, head high and too thick to walk through, in the wet acre. Blueberry grows on the fill around the driveway (and that road you wizzed near); also on the top of Mount Cadillac and spottily everywhere in the area.
To *farm* blueberry you pick a dryer field, burn it, and burn again occasionally to keep competing species down. There's a huge field off Rt 1 which is burned about every third year. There's a big berry ranch on the next peninsula over from me but I don't go past it enuff to know their business.
Wild Blueberries have been growing in Maine since the Age Of Disco. (The blueberry mob prints a cafe place-mat with a blueberry facts quiz, and that's one of the possible answers. The 'right' answer is "over 10,000 years", which seems conservative.)
The current blueberry-mob placemat: https://cdnimg.webstaurantstore.com/images/products/large/299370/1303425.jpg
Blueberries need highly acidic soil. (Pines are good cover.)
Large blueberries come out of research done in New Jersey in the 1910s, collecting freak genes. "Wild" blueberries are not planted but are actually intensely managed.
It's just a weed. It favors a dryer soil than winterberry, which we have LOTS of, totally wild, head high and too thick to walk through, in the wet acre. Blueberry grows on the fill around the driveway (and that road you wizzed near); also on the top of Mount Cadillac and spottily everywhere in the area.
To *farm* blueberry you pick a dryer field, burn it, and burn again occasionally to keep competing species down. There's a huge field off Rt 1 which is burned about every third year. There's a big berry ranch on the next peninsula over from me but I don't go past it enuff to know their business.
Wild Blueberries have been growing in Maine since the Age Of Disco. (The blueberry mob prints a cafe place-mat with a blueberry facts quiz, and that's one of the possible answers. The 'right' answer is "over 10,000 years", which seems conservative.)
The current blueberry-mob placemat: https://cdnimg.webstaurantstore.com/images/products/large/299370/1303425.jpg
Blueberries need highly acidic soil. (Pines are good cover.)
Large blueberries come out of research done in New Jersey in the 1910s, collecting freak genes. "Wild" blueberries are not planted but are actually intensely managed.
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Carlp, you forgot to mention the deer and horse flies, they make the mosq and blackflies look tame
Yep, we had deer flies, horse flies and 2 or 3 other biting flies up in Temagami. All at once. And I get a long-lasting intense itch when bitten. I tried whacking them but every few minutes another 8-10 would fly in to harass me. We were on a canoe trip and there was little escape. DEET and other repellants don't seem to work on them. We brought low-concentration picaridin instead (5% I think), and it works even less...
I am happy to be a city slicker now but when younger spent a lot of time in our Cariboo, which is roughly equivalent to Cottage country, and am well aware of the bugs of which you speak. Deep Woods Off was the cologne of choice.
Mosquitoes, fleas, and some flies MUST have a protein meal from a warm blooded mammal in order to complete their reproductive cycle. It's programmed into their instinctive behavior.
The mosquito can sense mammals by the CO2 that they emit. For reasons not yet well understood some humans have bigger CO2 footprint than others, and thus are preferred targets by mosquitoes. If I am in a crowd of people, they usually leave me alone. I can be dressed in only shorts, but the little flying power drills will pass my bare skin by and try to drill through Sherri's clothes which were drenched in Cutter to get to her tasty skin. However, if I'm the only target.......
This city slicker spent plenty of time acting like an idiot in the Florida Everglades, the Keys, or sailing in the Atlantic around south Florida and the Bahamas. On a humid, windless summer night the mosquitoes can be relentless and any netting will just slow them down. Citronella and other flammables, including good old diesel fuel, or wet green pine needles may ward off some of the herd but the attack will not stop until the little vampires have tasted your blood.
We have them here in rural West Virginia.....These seem to be smarter than yours. They don't bite my head, or any other place where I can swat. They go for the middle of my sweaty back where I can't reach them. They seem to know that some tasty white meat follows that lawn mowing machine around, and as you said attack in packs. For some reason the biting flies seem to prefer me over Sherri. The locals say it's the fact that I sweat so much.
Speaking of cold.....whazzat. We have been having record heat for the past 10 days. It's been in the 90's (F) here every day with zero breeze. Dehydration has been an issue when working outside. The creek out back is nearly dry, the grass is brown, and some of the trees have lost their leaves, probably forever.
Female mosquitoes. Males eat sap and flower nectar.
And other things like Pheromones, sweat and perfume.
I've not found any advantage to citronella. It tells the mosquitoes there are humans nearby. It's like a dinner bell.
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The candles are useless, as is the liquid stuff you get at Walmart to burn in a torch.
Smashing up a bunch of fresh leaves from the right plant (a lemongrass weed often called citronella), rubbing some of the goo on your skin, then throwing the rest of the plant in the fire seemed to slow the onslot of those little creatures that you can hardly see, but leave a big red bite mark on your skin. They are called sand flies, sand fleas, or no-see-ums, depending on where you live. These can be worse than the skeeters if you are on the beach or in low lying damp ground near any green vegetation. Works on skeeters too, but not perfect, about as good as Off or Cutter.
The smoke from many green plants being tossed in a hot fire seemed to be a better deterrent to skeeters, and some of the other insects that feast on human blood or skin than many commercial products.......some of the smoke can be toxic or allergenic, though.
Here we are not allowed to toss "yard waste" into the trash, or throw it in the creek, which leads to the Ohio River. We are told to burn it. We have an acre of land where knotweed and other invasive species are a constant problem. I only found one plant that I am mildly allergic to, and often rip poison oak and poison sumac out with my bare hands while stomping through the mud in bare feet without issue. There are several people including Sherri, that must be inside when I burn my yard waste though.
I still thing ripping it out an burning it is preferable to drowning it in Glyphosate (Roundup), which is what I did when I first bought the property and it was an 8 foot tall jungle.
I practiced land surveying in NC for over 20 years, and have personally experienced almost all of the "wonders of nature" mentioned here, with a few bonuses thrown in for grins.
Mosquitoes were only a minor nuisance for us since we tended to keep moving. Ticks were a constant problem, though. I've personally suffered from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and tick paralysis. No Lyme disease, thank goodness. But I was able to get in on ground floor of the latest craze sweeping the nation: delayed anaphylaxis. It went away after 6 years of avoiding "non-primate mammalian meat" which is great, because I love a good steak on occasion. Others aren't so lucky.
I've since gone on to greater things, to a place where the bloodsuckers and backbiters have only two legs, and most of the day's foraging is for "mercenary" doughnuts in the various breakrooms. But oddly enough, I still recall my surveying days as some of the best in my life. I've been blessed. I mean, seriously - what other profession allows you to go outside, act like a 12-year-old kid, and be paid for it?
Oh - and it's 79 F and partly cloudy here in the KC Metro...
I couldn't agree more - the stuff is absolutely worthless. Burning the money you'd have otherwise spent would probably yield better results.
Wow - please be careful. I was once like you, able to manually wrangle poison ivy and the like with impunity. Then came that one day when I wound up in the ED with an itching, bubbly, oozing rash over 30% of my skin area - mostly my back and legs, (and yes, there). The miracle of modern steroids meant I was only hating life for the next three days or so. And if you burn it, the urushiol oil can become smokeborne and a serious inhalation hazard. Not good.
Mosquitoes were only a minor nuisance for us since we tended to keep moving. Ticks were a constant problem, though. I've personally suffered from Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and tick paralysis. No Lyme disease, thank goodness. But I was able to get in on ground floor of the latest craze sweeping the nation: delayed anaphylaxis. It went away after 6 years of avoiding "non-primate mammalian meat" which is great, because I love a good steak on occasion. Others aren't so lucky.
- Black widow? Check. Loves manholes. Stings like a hornet. Cramped and retched for hours. Note to self: wear gloves.
- Brown recluse? Check. Loves unoccupied clothing. Bite won't heal. Pockmark still on leg. Note to self: shake clothing first.
- Yellow Jackets? Check. Hate chainsaws. Outrun you. Bite and sting. Note to self: you can't win.
When in season we'd gorge ourselves on huckleberries, which are a smaller close cousin. They were delicious, but the next day's results were usually... um... vivid. And there were usually blackberries and figs growing in most of the places we worked.
I've since gone on to greater things, to a place where the bloodsuckers and backbiters have only two legs, and most of the day's foraging is for "mercenary" doughnuts in the various breakrooms. But oddly enough, I still recall my surveying days as some of the best in my life. I've been blessed. I mean, seriously - what other profession allows you to go outside, act like a 12-year-old kid, and be paid for it?
Oh - and it's 79 F and partly cloudy here in the KC Metro...
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