BERRY TASTY INHERITANCE
Bushes prove to be delicious, nutritious bonus on family plot.
About two years ago, Greg Courts and his wife, Lisa, purchased a home just south of Germantown that came with 3 acres, 60 blueberry bushes and 600 thornless blackberry vines.
The berries, a tasty real estate lagniappe that might seal the deal for some buyers, did not impress the couple.
“I just liked the house,” said Greg, a dedicated meat-and-potatoes guy who isn’t much into eating fruits or vegetables.
He would rather be chomping on his brother’s barbecue ribs than digging into a bowl of blackberry cobbler.
Tim Courts is the pitmaster for Got Pig?, a barbecue team that won first place in the ribs division of the 2008 Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.
Greg, the team’s “CEO,” is in charge of presenting the ribs to the judges.
When he first moved into the house in October 2014, he contemplated mowing down all of the berries. Then his mother told him he had better not.
Every summer, Jana Courts typically picked about 10 gallons of blueberries at the Nesbit Blueberry Plantation to make jams, coffeecakes, breads, muffins, cobblers and other berry good treats.
“I was more tickled about Greg’s blackberries than the blueberries because I’ve never had a good source for them,” said Jana, a retired oncology nurse.
This year the blackberry crop was exceptionally big thanks to a change in the way Greg pruned the vines. Instead of cutting the productive canes back to 16 inches from the main vine as the previous keeper of the berry patch advised, he removed only the dead canes. The productive canes were tied onto the trellis.
He noticed a big difference early last spring when the vines were absolutely covered in flowers. Then thousands of blackberries began appearing.
“I got three times the yield as the year before,” Greg said. “I was not prepared for that. I would pick about 20 gallons one day, and the next there seemed to be twice as many berries on those vines.”
So now he is thinking about how to deal with the bounty next year since his mother, sister and other occasional pickers don’t make much of dent in it.
Greg, a mostly retired ATM entrepreneur, is looking for ways to market the berries, possibly to chefs and restaurateurs.
Jana filled a small freezer and about one-third of a larger one with berries. After picking, she takes the berries out of the buckets or plastic bags and allows them to dry on her counters for a day or two before freezing them. Then she puts two cups of unwashed berries into a freezer bag, an amount called for in many of her recipes.
“Even if a recipe only calls for a cup of berries, I’ll use two to have berries in every bite,” she said.
She lays the bags flat on the counter, evenly distributes the berries inside and gently presses air out of the bags. Then she lays the bags flat in her freezer.
Berries are rinsed before using.
Fresh berries will keep for several days in the refrigerator if they are not washed first. Jana loves having fresh berries for fruit salads, and she puts fresh or frozen berries on her dry cereal and oatmeal.
Both berries are rich in vitamins, fiber, antioxidants and phytochemicals. A cup of blackberries container 7.6 grams of fiber; the same amount of blueberries has 4 grams.
Jana usually waits until the weather cools to make jams and baked goods with her cache of frozen berries.
Her children and their families receive a basket full of those goodies every Christmas.
Greg is learning on the Internet about growing berries. He’s hoping to increase his blueberry harvest next year with some aggressive pruning of the bushes.
“I never thought of myself as a farmer or even a gardener,” he said. “This is just a novelty for me.”