Looking to plant some blueberries this spring. Does anyone have tips on how to get a good harvest of blueberries. Can anyone suggest any blueberry varieties that they like. Thanks

They like acid soil and loose well drained soils. Or at least our rabbit eye and southern highbush do.

For mine I worked up a raised berm and mixed in a good amount of sand and pine bark into the native clay. The native ph is 5.5. They are shallow rooted so a pine straw mulch helps.

Mine are in full bloom now.

You need to plant several varieties to improve pollination. Azalea fertilizer works as it is acidic.

Following.

I have wanted to plant blueberries for years but didn't have a good spot. This past summer we had a excavator come in and clean up the area behind our house, there were piles of concrete from demo jobs, scrap metal and a giant dirt pile. All cleaned up and now I want to get some berries planted back there.

My question would be is it worth it to spring for the little bit older/larger plants to get them producing faster or does it not really make that much difference?

Watching

Moosetrot

This, different cultivars with similar or overlapping bloom time.

With selection of early to late you can have berries for months. Or at least we can here with the earliest highbush to rabbit eyes, may to july.

You can buy some aluminum sulphate and other acidic forming soil ammendments. I don't know how low pH should be for all the tame varieties but getting ph in the upper 5 and low 6 range is optimal for many and then you need to keep adding to keep it there. I would worry as much or not more early on with pH, plant and growth management and then work on varieties you as you gain more knowledge in the crop.

Bryce

We buy blueberry plugs, root system about the size of a 16 oz pop bottle, tops about 8 - 10" tall. We plant them in bales of peat moss by the end of the summer they are 2' tall on average. They will bear fruit the 2nd year if we let them. Blueray, Reka, and Northland are the 3 varieties we grow.

Beaverpeeler, Carl, is the expert on blueberries. Hopefully he will chime in.

Keith

When I see failure with blueberries it usually is because the pH was not properly adjusted prior to planting. Ideally, target pH should be around 4.8. Anything up to 5.5 will still grow blueberries though.

Blueberries utilize ammonia fertilizers the best. Commercial growers generally go with ammonia sulphate. We organic guys go with feather meal or fish fertilizer. Aged sawdust or pine bark is generally worked into the planting beds before setting plants. Is has been shown in recent years that blueberries planted on raised beds will out produce and be healthier than those planted on the flat. Weed control and plenty of water are necessary for good results. Blueberries are very shallow rooted and do not compete well. Us commercial growers add sawdust or pine straw, etc on a regular basis. One needs to be mindful that incorporating sawdust or other high carbon materials to the soil will have a net draw on nitrogen at first. You'll need to correct for that by larger than normal nitrogen applications.

I would always suggest a soil test before planting.

There are many new and exciting varieties to choose from. I have blueberries from late June until November. A mix of highbush and rabbiteye types.

Among the high bush that i like are Darrow (a very large berry with good acid balance...one of the best for jam), Chandler is quarter sized fruit with very exceptional flavor with a large harvest window (up to 6 weeks). Legacy is highbush-southern hybrid with a large harvest of very flavorful medium sized berries. Duke is one of the standards for early blueberries as is Spartan. Probably my favorite early.

We prefer to plant in the fall and gallon sized plants are what we start out with. First year pick off the bloom and go for good growth. Second year you can leave some bloom on and maybe get a half to full pint of berries per pant. Third year maybe 2-4 lbs per plant and by the 7th year you should be around 10-13 lbs per plant if you've experienced normal growth.

Pruning should happen every year. We take out the spindly stuff and leave the thicker canes. You want to roughly remove 20-25% of the plant every year for regular pruning maintenance. Most home growers don't prune nearly enough and end up with small poor fruit.

Thanks Keith, I don't think I qualify as "expert" but I do have 5 acres of the things.

Carl, you prune them in winter when dormant like other fruit trees?

Karl hit it on the head. I collect pine needles in the fall and mulch with a mower and use that around the plant for weed control. I do 2-3 dump truck loads.

Yes, pruning is done during the dormant season. December through March in our area.

Following

Dave

GREAT INFO ! Thanks for sharing it.

To follow up with one more tip (which nobody will follow): Get your spot (full sun please) ready at least one year in advance!

Work in aged sawdust, peat or other good material and add some nitrogen to help break it down. Take a soil test and add elemental sulfur at a rate to bring the pH into the desired range. Sulfur will make soil more acidic which blueberries need to thrive but it takes at least a year to substantially change pH. Eliminate any perennial weeds. If you have trees sending roots into your desired planting area trench around your raised beds to cut them off. (I had to do that on one edge of a field where our stand of sequoias had sent lateral roots 100 ft into our field. Dug a 4 foot trench cutting them off and boy what a difference)!

If you do these things you will likely have a nice productive blueberry patch just about anywhere in the US.

PS..Animal manures are not a good material to work in as they tend to contain too much sodium which blueberries are sensitive to.

Down here pine bark is a readily available byproduct of our timber industry.

We got cold coming this week while mine are in full bloom. I knew we weren't through with the cold yet.

Hitting around 30 a couple nights this week.

Watching…..

Same here. My blueberries, my pears, and all the wild plums are in full bloom and tomorrow night is supposed to be 31 degrees.