So that's what they look like if the birds don't eat them all. :)

"Size doesn't matter"

...so said the female blueberry flower.

What about a taste report?

Taste report:

bluecrop: a bit bland when fully ripe, tangy if slightly unripe over all acceptable sweetness and taste.

berkeley: sweet, tangy and crunchy. Leaves a nice after taste, good size throughout the harvest. My favourite so far.

duke: quite bland, size varies a lot in the same cluster.

elliot: only have a few ripe once at the mo, not really impressed and taste like supermarket blues.

earlyblue: good large size Sweet and aromatic with a hint of prune in it. I like it a lot but production is erratic and yeld is low compared to others.

nelson: very large, tangy not too sweet the skin is a bit tougher though. The plant is very young and only produced a handful.

Chandler: great size an good taste very balanced and juicy. This the first harvest and looks like a winner in terms of growth ,size and taste.

Brigitta: first year producing, taste is not bad at all , sweet with a peach finish or something. Overall I am happy with it.

briteblue: I took a gamble growing rabbit eye in Ireland. The idea was to have a couple of good pollinators for pink lemonade which died anyway. So yes, taste wise it' s not too bad , the skin is thicker than NHS, sweet with a peanut buttery note.

Delite: a bit too sharp maybe is not fully ripe yet.

Spartan: youngish plant loaded with berries , far from turning blue and I thought was going to be an early cultivar.

northland: done fruiting , sweet taste very sugary strong grower very spreading ,quite low and is a pain in the back side when it comes to harvest for it's very bushy and fruit is small. Very high yeld though.

goldtraube: this is the aphids favourites one. Not many berries this year , the taste is ok , a bit too sharp for my taste they're quite aromatic though. I ll give it another year.

patriot: fruited manly when I was away on my holidays, so I hardly tasted any. There are a few small berries left , sweet enough but I have a feeling I missed the large juicy ones an I have to wait another year...

toro:latest addition young plant no fruit yet.

This is it, hopefully all the varieties weren't mislabelled and please remember that gardening is local and taste is personal.

thank you for reading and please share your thoughts and experiences.

sal

Interesting taste report (peanut buttery...that is a first I've heard for BB's :) ) Variety is the spice of life. One thing I'll say is my BB's vary in taste from year to year, maybe the amount of chill, rain, and fertilizer is playing a part. Sounds like many are first year to fruit for you. I'm sure you'll have your winners figured out of the next few years. Pink Lemonade is tasty and pretty neat looking, if you see it around again I would suggest picking it up.

I am taking a gamble on Blueberries for the first time this year. I planted one each of Patriot, Duke and Bluecrop. I am afraid all the fruit were insipid, mushy and very disappointing. Do the fruit improve in subsequent years do you think?

I hope that the taste of patriot will improve as the plant gets older, I ve heard good reports from friends who grow it. As for bluecrop and especially duke what you see is what you get I think. Mine are 4 years old and are on their third fruiting season and taste has not improved.

My feeling is that pruning has a lot if influence of berry size within varieties and weather probably has a large impact on flavor, My berries seemed to have best flavor when temperatures soared to 90*F and berries ripened rapidly. Naturally if one can figure out a way to just pick berries that have been ripe for 5 days the overall flavor will be better. I even speculate that some varieties turn berries blue too soon for their own good. I get frustrated with varieties like Nelson that turn from green to pink and fade into a reddish blue that are hard to distinguish from fully ripe berries.

Even in one plant various canes will have different sizes and quality of berries. Another reason to prune, especially with high yielding varieties.

Sorry, to add more but I wanted to comment on the picture. I don't know how you managed to get Duke (early) in the same frame as Chandler (late) but size on photo does no justice to those. My early Chandler berries will cover a quarter and Duke berries are seldom larger than dime size. Even Nelson, although large, is no where as large as Chandler in my patch.

I pruned my older plants very hard this winter and I m sure that has influenced growth and size, I also agree that weather has a lot to do with taste too. Round here very rarely gets over 60/65F and there is always plenty of rain, in fact I don't need to water the bushes I grow in raised beds. However at this latitude when the sun is out we can get a lot of daylight and Berries mature very slowly and build up more sugar, probably this is why the ripening times overlap. Chandlers fruit size is constantly big vs neslon's size is very variable from huge to average, the former suppose to be a mid season and the latter a late one. Duke ripens the same time as bluecrop for me, maybe just a few days earlier and the berry size is quite variable too.