One of the high points of 2014 was our trip up to the shores of Lake Superior to pick wild blueberries.Actually there were two trips because there was such a fantastic blueberry crop we couldn't resist going back for seconds. Nearly every bush was covered just like the one in my picture here.
Our first trip up was a leisurely trip with numerous stops for yard sales and coffee breaks. We didn't reach our favorite picking spot 'till well after noon.
Since this was a Sunday we had to get back home at a reasonable time so we only picked for about 2 1/2 hours. In that time we got over three gallons of berries. As we loaded up and headed home we talked about coming back again the next weekend. Blueberry crops this good don't come along that often so it was a easy decision. I got to thinking about it as we went home and decided if we were coming back we would come back loaded for bear....BERRY RAKES!
One small detail to work out though, I only owned this one little rake that is actually designed for cranberry picking. It being a yard sale purchase that I had never actually used I went out in the woods around our cabin to try it out. There were a few scattered bushes with berries and it seem to do the job but not very well. Time for a little internet research which was very productive. Lots of blueberry rakes both antique and new for sale. After studying the pictures I went out to the shop to see what I could come up with.
Having worked as a carpenter most of my life I went with the wood design first which was what most of the antique ones were made of. I took a piece of nice straight grain Douglas Fir and cut saw kerfs ever 1/4 inch leaving a 'tooth' about 1/8 inch wide with 1/8 inch spaces between them. I then made a box around that and added a handle.
Some hand sanding to smooth everything out and a coat of bee's wax finished it up. I didn't have another nice piece of the Douglas Fir to make another like it so I shifted gears.
All of the modern rakes were metal so I followed. I used common 16p. nails for the teeth. I punched holes in a piece of sheet metal spaced about 1/8 inch apart to hold the nails in the correct position and then brazed them on. I gave the teeth a upward slant which turned out to be a good thing. Both of my homemade rakes worked well but the metal rake was better because the berries stayed in it . The wood rake's bottom is flat. If it is tipped downward your berries roll out.
This was easy enough to compensate for, I simply emptied it into my bucket after each pass. This did make it slightly slower than using the metal rake. With it you could make four or five passes and then empty it into your bucket. Not a big deal but I would correct it if doing it over by adding the rake part onto the bottom creating a step down instead of using one continues piece.The biggest draw back to using the rakes is the amount of debris you get along with your berries.
To clean our berries I used two methods. First I winnowed the berries by slowly poring them in front of a fan. This removed most of the leaves and small debris but not the green berries. I floated those out by simply dumping berries in a bucket of water and skimming off the green berries which float.We still did some hand sorting and cleaning but probably less than we did on our first hand picked batch. When all was said and done we put 10 gallons of wild blueberries in our freezer. 3 from the first trip and 7 from the second trip with about 5 hours of time spent actually picking. Ann said she will make her delicious Wild Blue Berry Strata for New Year's Day breakfast. I'm already looking forward to 2015!
