John Collier is fascinated by blueberries.
It’s been that way since he was a child growing up in the Catskills near a mountaintop carpeted in lowbush blueberries. When his family moved to New Hampshire, they brought some of the bushes along, and bought some high bushes to add to the mix.
Fast forward a few decades and John has about 50 blueberry plants at his home in Hanover. “I find it fun,” he says. “Unlike apples where disease is such a problem, blueberries are a little more straightforward.” Some plants can live half a century or longer if properly pruned. “They maintain eternal youth,” he says.
John first heard about Willing Hands from a friend at the Dartmouth gym. In 2020 he participated in a handful of blueberry gleans at Hill Farm in Enfield, and then in 2021 he led three volunteer-powered pruning sessions there. As a result the bushes, which had been unmaintained for several years, began to produce more fruit. (Hill Farm is a unique gleaning site because it is a retired pick-your-own farm where all of the fruit now comes to Willing Hands.)
Pruning is John’s favorite blueberry-related activity. He has attended several pruning workshops and he routinely helps local farms with their pruning. “There’s a lot of intellectual challenge,” he says. “It’s like a jigsaw puzzle.” He says you have to have a vision for the plant before you begin pruning, and then once it’s finished you have to wait patiently to see whether your labor–literally–bears fruit.