Saturday, August 30, 2008

Today's Column...

Until I started doing the research for today's column, I had no idea that blueberry cultivation was as complex as it is. I grew up in Maine, in an area where wild lowbush blueberries grow pretty much everywhere. I learned a lot from the Cornell Guide to Growing Fruit at Home, which you can download yourself, in its entirety or by the chapter, in PDF form, here.

Here's a fun fact I didn't have room for: cranberries and blueberries are both members of the genus Vaccinium, but cranberries belong to the subgenus Oxycoccus, which some experts would like to be its own genus. With botanical classification, there's a lot of confusion, contention, and change. Wikipedia has fairly concise treatment of the taxonomy here.

1 comment:

knitlit kate said...

janey, do you ever write about trees? our beloved ash tree seems to have a sickness. i am so fearful that it is the dreaded boring beetle infestation that is sweeping parts of the country (tho i didn't think it was in our area yet). i see so many specimens of this beautiful tree in my neighborhood...and none is dropping leaves like ours. do you have any information that might help? i hate to think we might lose it!