G.Y.O. Blueberries- Grow Your Own

Blueberries!  We love blueberries here at Redwoodshire, and getting our plants in the ground was high on the priority list when closed on the house last Fall.  We ordered a few baby plants online through Gurneys, and bought 2 more established plants from our neighborhood nursery, Gro-Moore Farm.  We have 3 Bluecrop & 3 Jersey plants.  Once the plants arrive in the mail, we had to decide where to start our Blueberry patch.  Blueberries need acidic soil to thrive.  Our area sits on top of limestone, thus making the soil very basic.  Though not ideal for blueberries, it is still possible to grow them with care and soil amendment.

Mid-May blueberries

We purchased a few soil pH kits at Gro-Moore Farm Market and tested the soil in our garden, the area where for the raspberry row, and the area we'd decided to start our blueberry patch.  We decided to plant our blueberries in the space where the giant pine trees used to stand (the same pine trees that the Laird felled in the fall- see post about Felling Trees).  Decomposed pine needles naturally make the soil more acidic, therefore it was the perfect place to plant those blueberries.  A hundred years of decomposed pine needles right under our feet.  After testing the soil their, the pH was only 1 point more acidic than in the garden, but still on the outer range of idea for blueberries.  This means we still have to apply sulfur/ acid to maintain the right pH for blueberries to thrive.

As with other fruit bearing plants & tress, it is important to have more than one plant of a kind for cross pollination of the flowers to occur.  As previously mentioned, we have the Bluecrop and Jersey blueberry varieties. We planted our blueberries in

the fall, and they seem to be thriving.  Unfortunately,  toward the end of winter the deer got to one of our more established plants and nibbled it down to sticks.  It is currently recovering from that trauma.  Our largest plant survived the deer and bitter winter and currently has flowers becoming blueberries.  With only 1 flowering blueberry bush, we did not anticipate fruit due to the lack of cross pollination.  Much to our surprise, those flowers are becoming blueberries!  It is recommended that you pinch the flowers off new plants for the first 2 years, in order to allow the plant to focus it's energy on plant growth rather than bearing fruit.  Though this is difficult to do, the plants will have a higher yield in years to come.  Our large plant is well established and at least a few years old, so we allowed it to fruit.  None of the other plants were old enough to produce flowers, therefore we'll be pinching flowers from those plants for the next few years.  Such self control, but it will be well worth it.

There are so many things to do with blueberries- eat them off the bush, bake with them, make jam, freeze them for smoothies... flavor my homemade Kefir!  It is going to take a few years of establishment before we have any significant yield of fruit, so in the meantime we need to figure out how to protect our plants from the deer and birds.  We also have to learn the process of pruning blueberry bushes.  All for another day... and another post.

Early June Blueberries

Mmmmm blueberries!  Someday hopefully we'll have a bunch to enjoy every day!  And maybe even enough to share with those we love too.  We may have to get a few more plants!