ottawa foodies

I have a couple of secret spots but they are on the way to my dad's on the Hwy#7. just wondered if anyone knew ahead of time before I make the trip. Dad told me he found two King's (porcini) on his front lawn today and I want to be there for the big crop. I could double it with blueberries.

i am heading down hwy 7 on friday. i'll report back on sunday if the wild blueberries are out. does your dad happen to have a stand?

There were none at Parkdale the other day - but it is still too early. A few weeks yet

If you ever end up near Sudbury .. there are tons of them growing wild all over.

Hint - head towards Algonquin park... and it hasn't been consistently hot enough to produce nice blueberries yet, IMHO.

LOL, not that it is scientific (or even accurate) but just as a ballpark my farmin family used to say:

June = Strawberries
July = Raspberries
August = Blueberries

:-)

No, HipFU - dad doens't have a stand, although he's Irish and sometimes can't stand, but he lives in Bancroft so I like to make stops along the #7 to make a day of the trip.

all the blueberry stands were open on hwy 7.

I've stopped at those stands when it was early in the season (like now), and found that they were selling only cultivated berries, not the wild ones. In fact, I seem to recall noticing on one occasion that they were from New Jersey! So, caveat emptor...

I'll be at my cottage on Thursday and will take a picture of the current state of the blueberries. But won't be able to post it til I'm back on Friday

Nova Scotia blueberries are certain ripe enough to pick by hand, but not quite there yet for commercial raking. Still an awful lot of white berries amongst the blue ones. My cottage is on the edge of a huge field, and there are no signs yet of harvesting. I drove back to my father's place along backroads through blueberry country (about 70 or 80 km) and there are no signs yet anywhere of harvesting (fields divided into rows with string)

EDIT: will try to get photos up today

This was taken yesterday. Lots of ripe berries if picking by hand, but probably a week or so away from harvesting until more of those white ones are ready.

Here is a shot of (part of) the blueberry field beside my cottage in Lochaber, NS

My son showing off his haul. He got bored picking after only a few minutes. We don't pick in the commercial field - we have a little private field behind our cottage. My wife is making blueberry pancakes tonight for supper for my father - with fresh blueberries from the cottage.

bdm, they are the real deal, not cultivated ones. i didn't buy any, but my mother-in-law brought some that she picked up on hwy 7. they were fantastic.

I was wondering what wild blueberries are going for now, if there are any in the markets. I bought some at Parkdale market Aug 12 for $35/4 quart basket that yielded almost 4-1/2 pounds which I thought was too little and certainly not 4 full quarts but I bought them anyways as last year I didn't get any at all and suffered throughout the year for it (no blueberry pie!). FYI I ended up going to NS as my dw was going and I joined her at the last minute and we bought some in Oxford (the blueberry capital of Canada) for $13.75/5 lb or about 1/3 the price of them at Parkdale. They were $14.49/5 lb in Dartmouth. We ended up bringing 10 lb home in carry on luggage (no problem at airport) so I'll be eating pie and buckle this year!

Did anyone else pick or buy their blueberry supply for this year? How was the "local" crop?

saw some at FarmBoy $5/pint.

25 dollars for one of those super big baskets at Byward. Wife and friend are going to pick some up to make jam.

Nope, obviously not yet BUT Loblaw has President's Choice 600 gm bags of frozen wild bluberries (from Canada) on for 3.99. I just picked up a few bags - a very good deal and they're really good.