Bluebery bush

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I bought a blueberry bush from Ace Hardware last summer. It had a few berries on it already, but it didn't grow any new ones. Does anyone have any tips on how to grow a lot of blueberries? Ty!
 
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I have been bookmarking articles on it, but I don't know which variety I have so it's hit or miss for me. The most I have ever had was 5 berries (sigh). The first year I was just happy I managed to keep it alive, lol. It's still pretty small, but I have started feeding it and reading up so I am hoping for a better yield this spring.
 
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We did a pretty extensive post on blueberries way back, mine actually did better with all the acid loving soil amendments I did, but I still did not have much luck, I may try to dig them up and put in pots so I can keep them acidified....
 
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Well, size-wise, I think mine is okay in it's pot for at least the next year, maybe longer. I "fed" everything with diluted coffee last week and I am ready to strain the banana peels and see if watering with that solution will have any affect on my plants.

Recently I had mulched the blueberry with a thin layer of compost, then a layer of pine needles and another layer of compost. I am a little concerned though because I didn't realize it was sitting in water for a few days after a recent rain.

Usually after the rain, if the water doesn't evaporate on it's on by the second day or so, I will lift the pot from the drain pain and pour off the water. I hope the roots weren't too soggy.
 
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I tried to grow blueberries about for years and have had no luck. I made sure they were in a good spot in the yard and the soil was acidic and still nothing. I think the only berries I got off mine were the ones that were on it when I bought it. Good luck.
 
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Well this is a thread I need to follow... I picked up three blueberry plants last Spring, of which two survived the Summer. They are planted near a stand of blue spruce trees, so there should be no problem with a continued acidic soil, and they are right next to a sprinkler head, so they should get good water during the Summer... However while the plants did grow slightly and kept healthy green leaves, they just didn't really seem to take off. I am hoping they were simply putting down new roots, and perhaps next season I will see some real growth, but it doesn't hurt to learn more in the meantime.

(First post!)
 

Jed

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Blueberries generally need a cross pollinator. That is, at least two plants of a different variety.
Ensure if you buy two different varieties that they are both early or late varieties as they need to flower at the same time.
Blueberries love an acid well drained soil, a petey compost is ideal.
They also need plenty of water while they're fruiting. So if watering is a problem try the early varieties. :)
 
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Ugh that's going to be a problem... I believe the one plant that died WAS the different variety. Oh well, they take a few years to get going anyway, I'll get some more plants this coming Spring. Oh, also of note, I planted my blueberries next to a patch of established raspberries. Its just guesswork, but I reasoned that if one type of berry grows well in that area, the other might also. I also planted two grape vines on the other side of the yard, away from the pine trees. One grew very well this year, the other hung in there but didn't show any signs of growth. And the strawberries - oh the strawberries! - are going crazy beside the pond. I got my first nice batch of strawberries this year, and they were tasty!

Yep, I like berries... :)
 

Jed

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Raspberries and blueberries will do well together. Grapes don't mind a slightly acid soil as do strawberries. Those pine needles must come in handy?
 
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I'm going to have to keep following this thread to see if I can pick up anything. I've planted blueberries 3 different times and the plants just die. I make sure they have plenty of water and the soil is fine. After reading this maybe planting them closer to the trees would be better. I planted them at the other end of the property away from my pine trees because I thought it would be a better location and less things taking the nutrients out of the soil away from them. I'm open for suggestions because I love berries too.
 
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My parents had a row of 5 blueberry bushes in our yard growing up. There were no other plants as a pollenator, but not sure if they were different varieties. I do not believe they were different, they all looked the same and the berries tasted the same. We did not do anything special with ours. We didn't water them (unless it got incredibly dry), we didn't feed them anything special and they were quite productive. Maybe the NJ soil helped a bit tho. Maybe they just need more then one bush to be productive and ours were planted only a couple feet apart so the tops of the bushes were almost touching.

One thing we did have to do some years was cover them with a netting to keep the birds from eating them. Some years were worse then others with that.
 
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Well I guess I am doing something right because this year my little bush is loaded with flowers. I know they can grow well in this area of the country because there is a large blueberry farm across the lake. Not sure if my care and attention have helped or if the plant is just doing it's thing, but the banana water and diluted coffee don't seem to have hurt things.

I went from 5 flowers last year (It had about that many when I got it) to several clusters of flowers (probably about 100) and it sits in a flower pot near the front door. I am completely thrilled and can't wait to see the flowers turn into berries!
 
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I just got some blueberries to plant. I think they are all the same, so I will have to get one of another variety for a pollinator. I read that they like being planted with pine needles, so I was going to run over some with the mower to shred them, and then add a little into the hole when I plant them. The article said to also mulch blueberries with pine needles, and then it will compost and enrich the soil for them. I will be following this topic for more tips on blueberries, also.
 

Jed

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My parents had a row of 5 blueberry bushes in our yard growing up. There were no other plants as a pollenator, but not sure if they were different varieties. I do not believe they were different, they all looked the same and the berries tasted the same. We did not do anything special with ours. We didn't water them (unless it got incredibly dry), we didn't feed them anything special and they were quite productive. Maybe the NJ soil helped a bit tho. Maybe they just need more then one bush to be productive and ours were planted only a couple feet apart so the tops of the bushes were almost touching.

"Some blueberry bushes do not absolutely require two different cultivars for cross pollination purposes. However, cross pollination with at least 2 different cultivars results in larger berries, higher yields, and earlier ripening."


Some great info in the this link below. Check it out. :)
http://www.berriesunlimited.com/growing-blueberries/info_21.html
 

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