“This year’s lesson is humility,” said Tobias on Tuesday.
Then it poured through the critical three weeks when the surviving buds bloomed in late May and early June.Then it kept raining all summer. Wild blueberries compete against every other processable fruit — namely the highbush blueberry and the European bilberry — enroute to 35 countries around the world.Two years ago, growers got $1.20 a pound but a few years before that they were getting 20 cents per pound.So the Colbournes are a rarity; they’re thirtysomethings who chose blueberry farming rather than being born into it.
He did four years in the infantry and then nine as a hull tech in the navy before taking an early retirement.“She said, ‘You’d better find a way to make it work then,’” remembered Tobias.