r/oddlysatisfying 2d ago

Harvesting blueberries from a blueberry barren

9.0k Upvotes

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95

u/AdEnough2267 2d ago

I was just wondering how blueberries are harvested. Tech is pulling target content straight from our brains now.

35

u/_its_a_thing_ 2d ago

I worked the blueberry barrens in Downeast Maine one summer. Wild blueberries are low like this. We did it hunched over with hand rakes about a third the width of this harvester. My back has never been the same. That was in 1980 or so.

11

u/PercivalSquat 2d ago

Yup my dad used to spend summers as a kid raking blueberries in Maine. One summer some guy got his hand stuck in the machine that separates the berries from the leaves and stems and mangled it up pretty bad. Dad stopped doing it after that.

2

u/Many-Day8308 1d ago

Did it in the 90’s in Cherryfield. I see the old rakes posted from time to time in what is this thing and immediately can smell the sun, sweat, blueberries and immodan(sp?) pesticide

2

u/_its_a_thing_ 1d ago

Yup, good ole Cheeryfield. Purly Something-or-other running the crew.

1

u/WellNoNameHere 17h ago

Can confirm I am European and I remember going a summer camp as a kid (somewhere in the late 2010s) and finding a giant blueberry patch in the forest and it was all just very short shrubbery like in the video

1

u/lusciouslashess 1d ago

Some are still done by hand