It’s that time of year when I try to plant as many fruit and nut trees as I can!
I’ll cover the proper way to plant fruit trees next week, but today I want to show you how to plant blueberries!
I bought the “blueberry collection” from Miller nurseries and it just arrived yesterday. I’m so excited to add these to my existing 6 blueberry plants, 12 plants should produce plenty of blueberries for our family once they are all producing, which takes about 3 years. The first 6 plants are in their third year.
We also LOVE blueberry jam, here’s the how-to!
First, I soaked the blueberry plants in a big tub of water, an hour is minimum/12 hours max.
Second, soil preparation. Blueberries prefer acidic soil, with pH under 6.0 if possible. Knowing this, I mulched them last fall with decomposing wood chips mixed with well-aged manure. When planting new blueberry plants, you should take the time to acidify your soil. There are products that will do this, including sulphur. However, I found myself without the “soil acidifier” that I ordered, it’s not here yet, but the plants are. Rats. I hate when that happens.
Deep down, I love those opportunities that force me to think beyond the obvious and come up with another solution. How could I acidify this soil with something homemade? Well, this link was helpful and I decided to use the same thing I mulched my other blueberry plants with last fall and that’s decomposed wood chips with aged manure. I also considered the coffee grounds, that was my second choice.
How I decided to do this was to dig down about 24 inches and put a layer of the wood chips down, and then cover with soil. This way the new plant wouldn’t be burned, even though the manure was aged.
Soil prep is so critical! It’s the last opportunity you’ll have to inspire those roots to spread out and grow. Take the time to do it right!
Third, I made sure that the soil that went back into the hole was well broken up. I also added some of my well-composted garden soil in there as well, so that the young roots will be able to grow.
Fourth, water well and continue to water once a day for a few weeks, taking into consideration rainfall.
Three years later, you should have a blueberry harvest! Don’t forget to continue to acidify the soil around your blueberries, that’s how they grow best. A couple of times a summer should be good enough.
Then over to the strawberry patch, I’ve been meaning to get the straw from fall off and pull the millions of chickweeds from around them. I can’t wait to see how the strawberry patch, that I quadrupled last fall, does this Spring!
While I was digging around and exposing the strawberry plants, even though it might have been smarter to wait until after 4/17, which is our last frost date, I saw a fur-lined nest.
Look what I found! Baby bunnies! All the kids ooohhhed and aaahhhhed, how precious.
I guess they won’t be so precious if they come back to eat my lettuce! :)
So, how was YOUR week? Tell us about it!
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Haven’t put anything in the garden yet but hope to get potatoes and onions in if the rain holds off a little while tomorrow. I would love to start a strawberry bed. We butchered 10 roosters yesterday. I cooked a couple today and plan on canning the rest tomorrow. It was nice to have some chicken as we’ve had venison and pork for about the last four months. We don’t buy meat from the store and we were ready for a change. We still have about 10 or so roosters to go. Maybe Saturday, weather permitting. We haven’t done as much in school this week but I said we had Biology class and Home Ec. the last two days. We’ll do Ag class and Home Ec. tomorrow!
Hi Kelly-
We moved out to our acreage in November (yaaaaa!) so we are starting over in gardening. I have a strawberry question- do I have to pick the blossoms off the first year? i have heard that it is better to wait until the second year to harvest. What do you think?
Thank you and the bunnies are adorable!
HI Kelly!
Great post on planting blueberries and I love love love the baby rabbits… What a precious early spring discovery! Thanks for sharing… I’m planning a large cut flower garden for this year… and possibly adding a green house ! Lots to look forward too this year!
Wow, our last frost date is mid May…. and we’re not that far from you in Licking County. I wait till then to plant my tomatoes. Actually lost a crop one year just before Memorial Day. The bunnies sure are cute!
I got our snap peas in our raised beds just before we got a bunch of snow. Weather here in OR has been nuts! Anything but normal. We are looking at a rental with some acreage vs our place in town so I’m holding off on spring crops for now. Hopefully we know soon and the snow goes away soon so I don’t miss a season of planting! I’ve been canning anything I can get my hands on; dried beans, raspberry/marion berry jam (cleaning the freezer out), pears still available to purchase here, apple sauce ect.
My father likes to eat blueberries plain OR in a nice fruit smoothie
Love and hugs from the ocean shores of California, Heather 
Heather,
Blueberries have so many vitamins, it’s crazy!
Great post Kelly. Those baby bunnies are adorable. I used Espoma soil acidifier when I planted my blueberries. I am crossing my fingers. I’ve not had much luck with blueberries in the past. I hope to get more next year, if these ones do okay.
A few years ago I decided blueberries would make a great edible fence to shield our front yard from the road. I used peat moss to acidify and add more tilth to the soil. The problem was that is the highest dryest point of my 10 acres. I found out something really important about blueberries, they like damp soil:( I planted in the wrong place. After about 12 yrs, there are only 4 plants out of 20 left
Thank you for the blueberry how-to. We got two little plants this year even though everyone says they are impossible to grow here. I am reading everything I can about how to acidify our soil and help them grow. When they arrived they were already all rust-colored, the soil in their own pots wasn’t acidic enough anymore! Gah! I plan on planting them this afternoon, and have lots of decomposing wood chips and composted chicken poop to layer in the soil. Fingers crossed…
OH stink! I think I might have planted my blueberry bush wrong. Didn’t even check soil just dug down deep and put some mulch and compost and called it good. It seems to be doing okay but it’s a lil itty bitty starter so we shall see. Also last spring my yellow lab Barley found baby bunnies. Only one survived. WE live in the trees with Owls, Hawks, and also even Foxes and Coyotes. It was a good life and death talk with my kiddos though.