Blueberries are high in antioxidants and are considered one of nature's superfoods. The problem with them is that they are tricky to grow and need fairly specific soil to grow well. Luckily for us here at The Garden Shop, one of the biggest Blueberry farms in Ireland is just a few miles away from us. You can try growing them yourself, I have myself but with limited success. I find now that it's just best to arrange a picking session on the farm and fill my boots. Compared to supermarket prices, it's very reasonable. Even the cheapest of fresh blueberries in the shop costs an arm and a leg and you only get a small handful. So I'd suggest if you have access to one of these blueberry farms, contact the owner and see what you can arrange with them.

Anyway, back to the blog post. After 'filling my boots' (not literally) this morning, I'm home now and with a gut full of them already, it's time to freeze the rest for use over the coming months. I normally use them in smoothies, blueberry & apple tarts or crumbles and one which I've tried lately is to stew some blueberries and strawberries together, add a little sugar and have them on pancakes. Yum.

The freezing process is very simple really. There is no blanching involved in freezing them.

Step 1 - Pick the Blueberries

Easy enough, just be careful not to squish them while picking as they are fairly delicate. Remove the little stalks as you go and just fill your bucket, tray or whatever you have brought with you. If you have got them from a store or market you can just skip to step 2.

Step 2 - Wash the Blueberries

I usually just put them in a colander and give them a good rinse under a cold tap. Again here, try to be careful not to squish them.

Step 3 - Dry the Blueberries

For this, I just give the colander a good shake over the sink and them empty them onto a clean and dry tea towel on the kitchen table. Leave them ther for a short while and use another tea towel to pat them dry aswell.

Step 4 - Bag the Blueberries

Blueberries are a bit of a curse in that no matter how you dry them, they will do everything they can to stick together in the freezer. Some people freeze them on greaseproof paper first and then bag them but I find that it is much less hassle to, once dry, put them in the freezer bag and as usual with most of my freezing chores, don't fill the bag, 30-50% is enough, take out as much air a possible from the bag without damaging the blueberries and then seal it. It use zip locked type bags for this job but you could use a tub or a tie bag, whatever takes your fancy. Once the air is out and the bag sealed, try to arrange the blueberries in one layer inside the bag, without damaging them

Step 5 - Seperate the Blueberries in the Freezer

When freezing, make sure that nothing is on top of the bag of blueberries. The freezing process will take a few hours but during this, you should open the freezer several times and give the bag a 'good rustle'. This will help the blueberries from forming one massive frozen clump. I find this a good technique and it works well, you just need to remember to do the rustling!!! Wait maybe 90 mins before doing the rustling first as you will need them to be partially frozen to do this without causing damage.

Once frozen, you can transfer the blueberries to larger bags and fill them then if you like and enjoy them late into the year.