The Curse of the Mummy

The one acre of blueberries here at Northbrook Farm occupy almost as much space as all the other crops combined. Unfortunately, the blueberries are under the curse of the Mummy Berry!!!! This one's for the mycophiles in the crowd.

Sure, it may look like those beautiful berries are growing nicely in May, and in June they look like they're ripening nicely... but just before they're ready to eat, they turn black, harden and fall off the bush. Not all of them, but far too many of them. These blackened mummy's lie on the ground, hosting a devious fungus which sporulates when the weather warms up. The spores will linger on the new buds, waiting for new berries to form, and inevitably break our hearts when they mummify once again. The best thing to do would have been to cover the fallen berries with mulch, but I think this warm weather has caught up with us... although I haven't yet found any of the trumpet shaped apothecia which send out these spores.

Then again, the berries have other issues, they're 15 years old, but they look like they're only three and the soil is too alkaline. One advisor said not even to worry about the Mummy, until the soil has been improved, they may be onto something. We so often get fixated on symptoms that we miss the bigger picture; the root causes. Of course, these root causes are often the more difficult ones to fix, so we prefer quick fixes.

So even if we've missed mulching in time to permanently entomb the Mummy Berries, we'll still be pouring lots of energy into them. We've been pruning the dead, damaged and diseased limbs. We'll be using super strong vinegar to battle weeds. We'll be adding compost and mulch to amend the soil and a new irrigation system is going in this year. It's an exciting project that we'll be able to follow through our whole time here and hopefully see some improvement in the blueberries, and hopefully, over time, the curse of the Mummy will lift.

I just went out to take some pictures of the blueberries, then I accidentally deleted them... so here is a picture of our neighbours' ornery pet goose charging me while I feed it.