Garden Blueberries - How I Mastered A New Culture In My Garden

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Several years ago I bought four small closed-root garden blueberry seedlings (unknown varieties). The plants were very advertised, but there was no information about them. What conditions to create for them, where to plant, what soil to prepare - I did not know. I had to act blindly. I decided to plant plants in the same way as currant bushes. I dug holes 50x50 cm. The distance between the bushes was 1.5 m. When digging a hole, the top layer of soil (on the bayonet of a shovel) was folded to one side, the bottom layer of soil to the other side. Rotted manure, compost, superphosphate and soil from the upper layer of the pit were placed at the bottom of the pit. She mixed everything well. In the upper part of the pit I put everything the same, only I covered the soil from the lower layer of the pit and added the fertilizer AVA station wagon. Mixed everything up. I dug holes according to the size of the seedlings and planted them there. I poured it with Energena solution (one bottle of 10 ml per 10 liters of water). This was my first mistake. The soil for garden blueberries should be acidic - with the addition of peat and soil from under the pine trees.

The plants have taken root normally. After the first winter, two bushes, the smallest, died. This was due to the fact that they were planted in the place where a lot of melt water accumulates in the spring. This was my second mistake. In the spring I had to dig a small groove along the rows where the garden blueberries grew. I put the dug earth around the bushes, thereby slightly raising the plants. Raised ridges have formed. I added azophoska under each bush. On hot days of summer, she watered the bushes. Over the summer, I fed it with liquid manure four times at the beginning of the growing season.

In the first year, blueberries did not form large increases. But she was clearly not going to die. In the second year, the gains formed slightly more than the previous ones. In the third year, I found scant information about garden blueberries, but it was the most important thing - the composition of the soil. Started correcting a mistake made during landing. Introduced peat and soil from a pine forest into the soil for each plant. From above, I mulched plantings with the same earth from the forest. I did not apply fertilizers, only fed them with liquid fertilizer "Ideal" twice. As the soil became loose, the plants had to be watered more often. And here my bushes cheered up and gave good long growths.

In the fourth year in the spring, I again brought peat and soil from under the pine under the blueberries. And a miracle happened - the blueberries bloomed! And then in the summer we finally tasted the berries. True, they did not all ripen at once, but gradually. They were very large, dense and tasty (without bitterness, like her forest blueberry). Every day we all examined the bushes in search of ripe berries. It's good that feathered friends never feasted on such berries and did not raid them. Blueberries were not affected by any diseases or pests. In autumn, the bushes looked very elegant. At the same time, each of them had green, yellow and red leaves.

This season I will definitely buy a few more garden blueberry seedlings. It will take its rightful place in my garden. I will prepare the soil immediately, taking into account its requirements. I also advise other enthusiastic gardeners to try to grow this rare culture in our gardens.