Blueberry Plants: How to Plant, Grow, Care and Harvest the Sweet Fruit
Blueberry Plants With their sweet and tart flavor and the many different ways that they can be prepared, you'll find that blueberries might be the perfect fruit for your garden. They can be a rather tricky fruit to grow, but as long as you remember a few basic things, you'll find that cultivating blueberries can be a wonderfully rewarding experience. Take some time and make sure that you learn how to care for blueberry plants properly. First, make sure that you live in a place that is suitable for blueberries. While they do not require a lot of space, it is imperative that they have a highly acidic soil. If you live in a place where the soil is not very acidic, you'll find that you are going to need to add something to soil to lower the pH. Blueberries need that has a pH of around 4.5-5.5. To get this result, you may find that adding elemental sulfur, cottonseed meal or ammonium phosphate to the soil will help. To plant your blueberry plants, start by digging a hole that at least 18 inches deep and 18 inches wide. Fill the hole with at least 1 cubic foot of peat moss mixed with top soil and fill the hole with four inches to spare. Set your plant in this hole and then fill it the rest of the way in. 
When you are planting several plants, make sure that they are set five feet apart in rows that are least ten feet apart. After you have planted, make sure that you add four inches of sawdust or wood chip mulch in a two-foot wide band after planting. Maintain this band as long as your plant is around. As you may have guessed from the instructions, the roots of the plant are typically very shallow. As such, they will need around 1 to 2 inches of water per week. If you are experiencing a dry season, make sure that you compensate with slightly more water. In most climates, you should not apply water after early September unless the ground is very dry; you do not want to rot the roots with too much moisture. Pruning is another important part of taking care for your blueberry plants. For the first three years, your plants will not need to be pruned, but if you want healthy plants, do make sure that you remove blossoms that appear during the first two years after planting to get the best results. During the fourth year, look into pruning the dormant plants around mid-March, when you should take off any dead or weak branches, or any thin terminal branches that have small buds. Also make sure that you take some care to prune the branches to the interior of the plant as well, so that you can allow light into the center of the plant. As the plant gets older, make sure that you trim back older branches. This will force the plant to grow. Take some time and consider what your needs are going to be to get the blueberry plants. As long as you keep a few things in mind, you'll find that this is a terrific plant to grow.
|
