Book Event this Saturday, August 24!

Two of my books for kiddos ages 7-11

Hello Everyone—I hope you’re enjoying these last few weeks of summer!

If you live or are vacationing in the far northwest of the Pacific Northwest, USA, I hope you’ll check out a fun book event at the Bellis Fair Mall in gorgeous Bellingham, Washington! 

Joining a couple dozen other authors, I’ll be signing all my paperback titles at this special “back-to-school” book event. 

I’ll be there from 11am - 3 pm, and would love it if you’d stop by and say hello!

Three of my homestead books

New chicken book!

In keeping with living the simpler life here on our little homestead, I’m having my own “Keep it Simple Sale,” with lots of special prices for all my titles: my uplifting homesteady memoirs, middle-grade books, and Ballydara novels. 

Homesteady bonus: My kids’ books are all family-friendly stories too!

Day of the Dead story

With Halloween and Halloween parties just a couple of months away, I have some extra fun pricing for my “Day of the Dead” paperback for kids, Curse of the Corpse Bride, perfect for party favors! 

Any questions? Just pop over to my website to contact me. And keep in mind all my books are available for free at your local public library…just put in a request! 

Blueberry Harvesting Tips + Easy Berry Dessert

Here’s 6 quarts of the 22 I picked last week!

It’s blueberry time at the Little Farm! 

My days are filled with berry picking, putting them up for the freezer…and trying to keep the rest of the food garden watered and weeded! 

And of course, baking yummy blueberry desserts with all this bounty.

At our place, with a wide variety of shrubs, the blueberry harvest goes from mid-July until the end of August. 

Depending on the weather, the harvest can extend into early September. It’s a rewarding time, for sure…

But each summer, as our shrubs get larger, and produce bigger harvests, blueberry season gets a bit more overwhelming!

A couple of days ago, I picked a several quarts, and got them rinsed and drying on the counter for freezing. At the same time, I decided to bake my go-to blueberry recipe, Blueberry Buckle!

Chaotic kitchen on our homestead!

Raising Blueberries

Given how busy things can get, with each season, I try to improve my harvesting/picking strategies. 

Keep in mind that the berries on each different variety of shrub ripen at different times. Some have an early harvest, some mid-season, and some don’t ripen much until mid-August. And remember: just because a berry is blue, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s sweet! 

I’ve gotten into a habit of closely observing my shrubs for ripening timeframes, and taste-testing too. A dark purple berry won’t be quite ripe; you want to see a deep blue before you pick. 

Some berries aren’t ripe until the entire berry cluster has turned that deep blue. But other varieties, like the large-berry “Chandler” will have a few very ripe berries, while the rest of the cluter is still white or pink.

For tips for finding the sweeter berries…

Basic picking technique is to curl your hand beneath a berry cluster, and sort of “tickle” the berries. The ripe ones will fall into your hand.

When it's early in the season, you're probably trying to select the ripe berries when there are still so many white ones on the shrubs. Here's what you do: just look for the clusters of berries where all but one or two berries are blue. Select the largest berries in the cluster, and you'll be sure to end up with more sweet ones!

Baking with Blueberries

The good news is, if you’ve inadvertently picked a lot of not-quite-sweet fruit, there’s always putting them into a dessert! Our go-to easy summer dessert is Blueberry Buckle—a kind of coffee-cake type recipe, adapted from the original recipe for huckleberries. This link includes the complete method. 

You can make it from basic baking ingredients you’ll probably have in your pantry, so there’s no extra trip to the store!

I’m always improving on the recipe, and last season, I got inspired by my “Downton Abbey” cookbook. I adapted their recipe for “Fairy Cakes” and ended up with a slightly richer Buckle. 

If you’d like to compare with the original, here’s a screenshot of the Buckle “cake” portion.

The struesel topping is super basic, just 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup flour, and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. 

I’ve got several versions of the Buckle here on this blog… If you’d like to see them all, there’s a handy search bar on the top left corner!

Here are pics of the one I made this past weekend… I did get greedy with too many berries on the top. The middle was still goey after 1 hour of baking, so it took extra time. Next time I’ll stick with 2 cups of berries, like the recipe says!

Here’s the buckle before baking, topped with berries (too many, I learned!)

Here it is with the struesel/crumb topping before baking

And after baking! You’ll see it’s a little brown, from the extra baking time

For more on growing blueberries homestead-style, it’s all in my free ebook, Little Farm in the Garden… It’s available at all ebook retailers, and the #1 book in Amazon’s Pacific Northwest Gardening category! 

You’ll find additional free ebooks at SusanColleenBrowne.com…just click “Free to Read” for an Irish romance, a Halloween book for kids, and more!