Blueberry Bliss

blueberry fields forever

Yes indeed it was bliss as I gobbled my way through handfuls of delicious fresh blueberries at Halswell, near Christchurch. It's the height of the blueberry season here and the weather has been kind. This is a bumper crop and the people at Blueberry Bliss, this family-owned "pick-your-own" farm, do not spray the berries. Maybe one day they will also stop spraying the grass too.

Meanwhile, I managed to bring a 1.5kg bucket of berries back with me (minus the ones I munched on in the car on the way back). This will make for great eating over the next couple of days, and Elvi promises we will be going back there before I leave Christchurch.

Some Nutritional Facts About Blueberries
Blueberries are high in Vitamin C . A single 100g serving contains 9.7mg, 20% of the recommended daily requirement. They provide us with many essential minerals including manganese which plays an important role in bone development and metabolism of macronutrients.

100gms of Blueberries contain:

Kilojoules

214

Magnesium

7.0mgms

Water

83.4gms

Calcium

11.0mgms

Proteins

0.7gms

Phosphorus

13.0mgms

Fat

0.4gms

Iron

0.5mgms

Carbohydrates

12.0gms

Zinc

9.0mgms

Fibre

5.2gms

Sulphur

9.0mgms

Ash

0.2gms

Sodium

5.8mgms

Potassium

70.0mgms

Vitamin C

19.9mgms

*this information, courtesy of NZ Blueberry Growers Association

All of this goodness can have the following effect:
•    beneficial in reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke
•    useful in treating and preventing urinary tract infection
•    a protectant against the damaging effects of free radicals
•    beneficial in helping treat some cancers
•    helpful in reversing the effects of age related deterioration

berries in abundance at Blueberry Bliss farm

Blueberries: origin and uses

The humble blueberry is a native of North America and captured in American culture as blueberry pie. In pre-colonial times it was the native american indians who gathered blueberries for food. Their folklore explains how the blossom end of each berry, the calyx, forms the shape of a perfect five-pointed star. Elders of the tribe would tell of how the Great Spirit sent "star berries" to relieve children's hunger during a famine. Parts of the blueberry plant were also used as medicine and the juice was used for dyes.

Today, America produces about 90% of the world's blueberries. This includes a wild-harvested variety local to Nova Scotia. As a food, they are eaten fresh, frozen, canned, juiced, and used in muffins, pancakes, sauces, cakes, salads, smoothies. sorbets. My favourite way of eating them is fresh. But i also enjoy them in a banana-berry smoothie (fresh or frozen).

Blueberry Production

Blueberries are a member of the plant family, Vaccinium along with 450 other species of plants. Included amongst these are the bilberry, cranberry and many other esoteric varieties of berries not often seen in commercial production.

Blueberries grown commercially fall into three main groups:
a) northern highbush: this is the variety most often found in Australia and New Zealand production. It grows up to 1.5m high.
b) southern rabbiteye: named thus because the calyx of the berry resembles the eye of the rabbit. Most common in southern USA.
c) lowbush or "wild blueberry": cold-hardy dwarf bushes surviving in the wild as far north as Arctic North America.

Eating more than i picked!

A bucket of beautiful berries to take home.

What Am I Eating in Aotearoa

Here i am, back in the home country, Aotearoa NZ - land of the long white cloud. So my raw vegan friends who live in sub-tropical climes are always interested in what there is to eat in a temperate climate. Lots! But it helps if you can grow it yourself, as prices are high and this is a small country. Organic food and locally grown food is not always readily available in the quantities and variety that we are used to in Australia.

Fruit from Pikos Wholefoods in Christchurch

My first day here and i head down to Pikos Wholefoods to find out what fruit they have on offer. Fairtrade bananas from Ecuador at $5 kg, dates from Tunisia at $17 kg and locally grown heirloom tomatoes & courgettes (zucchinis). The apricots and avocado are also local, though from further afield.
This is my food supply for the next two days. Fortunately Elvi has lettuce growing in her garden, so this afternoon I whipped up a delicious salad with freshly picked cos and fancy lettuce from the garden. I included the courgettes, tomato, kiwifruit and a little avocado which i bought from Pikos.

heirloom tomatoes grown locally

Courgette, tomato, avo, kiwifruit & lettuce

Breakfast of Champions

Daryl and I eating breakfast in Myuna Bay. Watermelon is one of my favourite ways to start the day, and i enjoy the seeded variety. It is quite late in the season to be finding good watermelon. i picked these ones up courtesy of Mike at the Blue Mountains Food Co-op. They came via the wholesalers in Sydney.

Feasting on Figs

This morning we stopped for breakfast at Wises Fig Farm. One of the original farms in the area it has been a fruit farm for three generations. Although it is nearly the end of the season, their Black Genoas are simply the best I have tasted, and let’s face it, nothing tastes better than a ripe fig picked that same morning. We arrived just in time to get a box of their “jam” figs. We’re talking 4-plus kgs of very ripe, squishy delicious fresh figs, picked at 6am that morning and not even been in the fridge long enough to chill.

There are two varieties being picked at Wises right now; the Black Genoa and the Brown Turkey. I liken the flavour of the Brown Turkey as the reisling of the fig world, whereas the Black Genoas have a full body, rich flavour - more like the pinot of figs. Oh yum!

Wises used to do pick your own, for a range of fruits, but bureaucracy and the Sunshine Motorway development has curbed that. In it’s heyday, the farm had a fresh fruit stall, café and PYO operation. However the government wanted to double their rates, re-zoning them from farm land to “tourism”. So they shut up the shop, ceased the pick-your-own and re-focussed their efforts onto growing the best ever figs.

Parts of the original farm, which used to go down as far as where the Sunshine Plaza now is, have since been sold. Firstly to make way for the Sunshine Motorway, which now runs along the border of the farm. And more recently, the Wises sold off a block of land to developers. As a result, the entrance to the farm is discreetly tucked away at the back of a swish-looking housing estate off Wises Road. Despite that, a growing number of locals seem to know where to find the farm.

Picking starts at 6am. They use no pest control, other than biological controls for fruit fly. So pickers compete with the birds for the ripest figs. Figs are packed into punnets of about 1kg and popped in the fridge in the shed. Sales operate on an honesty box system and it is definitely good to get there early for the large $20 boxes of jam figs. A little squishy, they definitely need eating the same day. But we had no trouble doing that! The wises have two stands of fig trees. The older ones are about 10 years old, and due to the increased popularity of their figs, they’ve found a need to plant more trees to keep up with demand. The younger trees have been in the ground for about 4 years.

great scrumping here

i'm staying with Dad in Palmerston North, a medium-sized regional town (they call it a city) in the heart of a dairy-farming district in the North Island of aotearoa. in this suburb everyone has a lawn and a garden. most properties have trees and that just about always includes a lemon and/or a grapefruit tree. citrus is king. the trees are laden, and they hang freely over garden fences and into laneways. so not only do i have the pick of Dad's lemon tree, but also the neighbour's grapefruit. nothing like a freshly-squeezed grapefruit juice first thing in the morning.