From a farmer to you – a series of real stories about real people

Go Blue or go home: Blue Antioxidants

Can you imagine strolling through luscious wild blueberry bushes with millions of honeybees buzzing all around you? 

 

Visit Russ and Donna Hawkins at their blueberry farm this spring in Pennfield, New Brunswick and you’ll discover fields that are ‘just a buzzin!’ 

 

The distinctive sound is made by 10 million bees stroking their four tiny wings 1,400 times per minute. Russ rents 200 beehives from a local beekeeper at a cost of $80 per hive. Each hive is home to 50,000 bees who will work for Russ for a three-week period. The bees help bring fruit to flower by pollinating the delicate bell-shaped blossoms of the berry bushes.

The Hawkins farm has the capacity to produce one-half million pounds of the fruit. Blueberry plants like acidic soil, and according to Ross, they’ll grow in sand, gravel – or wherever you clear land.

 

Ever wonder why blueberries are blue? Their colour comes from anthocyanin (a water-soluble pigment), making them one of the few “true blue” foods. Wild Blueberries primarily spread by rhizomes, or underground runners. At harvest time the bushes are 20 centimetres high with small teardrop leaves bearing sweet strings of powder blue berries.

The sweet and tangy little berries not only have a big taste, but are deemed one of the world’s super foods. Rich in natural blue antioxidants, wild blueberries have been shown by research to provide protection against major diseases, and the effects of aging.

 Visit Russ and Donna online http://hawkinsfarms.ca