Evening Edge

Berry lovers, rejoice. The blues are back.

There's a bounty of berries available for this summer's picking season, almost ripe and ready for cobblers, muffins, pancakes and cereal.

Chris Hunt / AJC/Styling by Deborah Geering (ENLARGE)

Finnish Blueberry Squares are more portable than pie but just as delicious. They're extra sweet with a sprinkling of confectioners' sugar.

bigstockphoto.com (ENLARGE)

Follow the links below to find U-pick farms where you can harvest your own blueberries. Some farms provide buckets or you can bring your own.

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It's been two years since blueberry fans could get their fill of Georgia-grown. Last year's crop was virtually wiped out by an Easter freeze. Supplies were tight and prices high for much of the early summer.

Not so this year. North Georgia growers are reporting bushes heavy with fruit. The season looks good in South Georgia, too, which produces most of the Georgia-grown blueberries sold in supermarkets.

In North Georgia, many of the blueberry farms are smaller, you-pick operations. Do the work yourself, and you can take home a gallon of berries for about the cost of two pints bought at the grocery store. And there's the added bonus of spending a couple of hours plucking berries from bushes in a peaceful setting while chatting with family and friends, no stooping required.

Throw in the berry's recent status as a superfood rich in anti-oxidants, and there's even more reason to head for the bushes.

Although berries are available almost year-round because of Southern hemisphere growers and relaxed rules for shipping into the United States, the best time to eat blueberries is now, when they're fresh and local.

The plants, which are natives of North America, produce berries between May and September. Berries are at the peak of flavor and freshness in summer, and shipped to stores without the near-freezing temperatures required for imported blueberries. (To guard against bringing pests like the Mediterranean fruit fly into the United States, imported blueberries are stored for two or more weeks at temperatures just above freezing.)

So go ahead. Pick up a pint or two, stir into pancake batter or sprinkle over cereal, and get a taste of summer.

Sweet. Juicy. And oh, so blue.

BLUEBERRY RECIPES

Start with soup, end with dessert squares

Sautéed Chicken Breast With Blueberry-Port Sauce

Chilled Blueberry and Strawberry Soup

Orange Berry Muffins

Finnish Blueberry Squares