A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum Fruit Forum Does anyone have a blueberry bush?

I am going to be planting mine outside soon I think.. hopefully the weather is warm enough..

I was just wondering what you need to do to prepare for it.. doesn't it need high alkalinity? I am not sure what I have to do to achieve that..

They need high acidity about pH 5.I can't grow them cause I can't afford to provide them with their conditions.

Oh ok.. I was on the wrong end of the scale.. um.. why can't you afford it? Is it expensive to keep acidic soil?

How do you know they need pH5?? Where can I find more info? I am going to try googling blueberries.

Yup.I only have about 80 bucks in the bank and I can't spend it;it's my college fund.I just read the Blueberry section of a gardening book and it says that they need a pH of between4-5.Sawdust lowers the pH of the soil as well as sulfur.

Bother.. I just looked them up for Ohio.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1422.html

They sound like a pain in the rear. And I didn't know they wouldn't produce for three years.. and I only got one kind. Mine are Blueray, which aren't even on that list. *sigh*

Hey it takes that long to get asparagus from seeds so I won't be growing them or blueberries.

Hmm.. well, I don't know.. it says you don't have to have two cultivars, so maybe I will try it.. it says it likes clay and poor soil.. that I have. Hahaha

Um, Enrique, why does your name have an angry face by it?

My brother really made me MAD!!! He threw an apple at me!!!Well,I'll make him slip on a banana peel!

That is why you have an angry face? I don't know how to change it..

We are off topic.

I like blueberries in my muffins so maybe I'll try and grow some when I'm older.

In muffins and in pancakes! I am tired right now.. that is why the idea of dealing with them seems intimidating.. I think I am going to go to bed now.

I've had them but they were the wild ones that I transplanted. They were spreading too much so I had to dig them out...I plan to replace this year with a tame bush or two though. I like the large berries for special desserts.

The wild ones grow here though so I pick and freeze those for muffins and cakes as well.

I am hoping this fall to expand on my berry bushes....and dig out those yellow raspberries that are coming up everywhere and plant them in a spot with an underground barricade...lesson learned.

definitely unground barriers when it comes to berries lol. I plan to plant an entire row of blueberries because I love them so much and they are so expensive. Acidic soil isn't really that hard to get if you are willing to grow a couple of pine trees. Their needles make for good acidic soil. Although you have to start composting with it the year before you plant to get everything insync with one another. I have azaleas too and they require an acidic soil as well. I've have different types of soil all over the yard so I can grow all my favorites.

I have six blueberry bushes and I mulch them with pine straw that I have gotten from my sister's house. This year we planted a field of our own pine trees, so that should take care of all the mulch we need.. The drought hit the blueberries pretty badly last year, but this year there are lots of flowers.

Ok, underground barrier? And I don't have any pine trees.. how much pine needles do you need? And I already bought one bush.. I am not ready for it.. my soil isn't prepared.. what should I do???

Don't worry Jennifer. Your tame berry bush won't spread like the wild ones. Just plant like any other bush. See if you can get a few handfuls of dried pine needles to sprinkle around it, if not add some pine mulch.

Don't over-fertilize it.

do a pH test where you want to plant your blue berry. find out what the pH is. It takes 6 months to lower the pH in soil using sulpher and that is probably the fastest way. When you buy the sulpher it will tell you how much to add based on the square footage of garden you want to prepare.

Then just plan to mulch with about an inch of pine needles during the growing season and maybe more during the winter. That should maintain the pH level where it is good for the blueberries.

For a barrier I'm planning on Plastic, Magnolia Leaves, and gravel. Because I'm planting along a fence I'll start with a trench lay down the plastic, dump in the magnolia leaves and then top with the gravel. then I'll plant the blueberries in the middle of the trench and fill in the sides with more leaves and gravel. Hopefully that will keep them contained. I can't afford to sink large pots in the ground to contain them.

One 5 foot pine tree should provide you with enough pine needle mulch as you will need for your blueberry bush.

So what do I do with my blueberry bush for 6 months til I prepare the soil? That is, if it is even still alive.

Just plant it Jennifer, it'll be o.k.

I guess so Tamara.. worse case, it will die I guess.. right?

Nah, it won't die. You'll just not get a good yield of berries until the ground is acidy enough. Which will take a couple of years anyway.

Just plant it with the soil mixed with some peat moss and mulch the top with some old pine needles if you can. Water it well when you plant. Seems like blueberries do best in well drained soil also, here we have to add sand because our ground is too rich.

Oh well that should work out fine then.. cause I doubt I would get berries the first year anwyay.. right??

It usually takes at least two years Jennifer.