A bee is busy in the blueberry bushes blossoming in February here on Paris Mountain.
blueberry bush
Blueberry Assumptions Prove False
Beautiful blueberry blossoms look like bells.
Back in January I took pictures of my blueberry bushes blossoming and bemoaned their inevitable premature death. Sure enough, we had a snowstorm and the blossoms died. I was sure that early blossoms meant that there would be no blueberries this year from my garden. But it appears that I leaped to incorrect conclusions about my bushes and could have had a little more faith in their ability to gratify our appetite for berries. It’s still not officially spring but it sure feels like spring around here. Of course, there’s no guarantee that there won’t be another frost, but here’s to having faith in the future.
Caterpillars in the Bush
According to this article from NC Cooperative Extension at NC A&T University about yellow-necked caterpillars, the caterpillars in my blueberry bush are in a feeding aggregation.
I’m not above taking caterpillars and tossing them into the field when they are threatening my crop, but since I already picked my last blueberries for the season, I wasn’t feeling so possessive about a few leaves. They do turn into pretty butterflies eventually.
I went to check on just how much they were eating this morning but they were all gone. I did have a branch bare of leaves. They might have moved on, or they might have gotten picked off by the birds…