Some basics about American blueberries
This is our newly furbished blueberry bed. I do expect it to give us blueberries in large amounts by one year or two. Right now, it is mostly one of the plants that make sure we do not go hungry... :O)
The construction
The construction was at the end the following: Dug about 10cm over the board. Dug also for the new blueberries more in depth (around 30cm). Also we dug for a future grape plant in the right corner.
The area was then covered with peat.
We installed an automatic watering system where a hose goes along the back of the bed and hoses are then drawn from there to each and every blueberry shrub. The main hose is without holes, but for each plant, there is a "hole" hose for water distribution.
This whole bed was then covered with wheed fabric to avoid weed coming from the ground itself. This action payed out for this year. It might create issues later but that I do not care about now. Right now, it is indeed keeping weed to grow there. We finalized the construction by covering the fabric with bark.
As you see, it looks little "empty" right now, but I expect the plants to grow with the years.
The edges were a little of a problem: the original idea was to actually use concrete to define the edges clearly. I realized it would imply a great deal of work and cost to do so. So what we did at the end was to border the bed with bark only and have fabric under it. The automatic lawn mower should be able to go over the edges and cut all grass completely. Let us see how this works.
The Scheme
The blueberry plants we have now are:
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Goldtraube'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Elisabeth'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'North Country'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Northblue'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Darrow'
This is the "map of blueberries".
Historical background
We started out with three blueberry plants quite a few years ago. We dug holes in the grass. This is how they looked in May 2007, when we first planted them.
Fact is, the grass and weeds just grew into the plants and they were very hard to remove. To be honest, it was a real pain in the cakehole....
Blueberries are one of the best plants to have in the garden. They give good and healthy fruits (or so we hope... ;O) ). Even though you might think 3 blueberry plants give enough blueberries for the whole family, I personally wanted more. So I convinced Janne to purchase 2 more. But digging two more holes did not sound very attractive and the idea of skipping the grass between them seemed like a good idea. We were going to build a bed for the blueberries.
We actually hired a guy to do the digging. Quite a few stones had to be eliminated from the area.
After a lot of discussions with the idiot we hired, and a lot of back and forth and tough work from our side, we managed to get up the bed as we intended it from the first beginning: with a lot of peat and over the grass level. This is the result after altering back and forth.
- They need peat to grow and don't like regular garden soil so you need to change the soil where you want them to grow
- They like to be watered regularly
- You need more than one plant to get berries as they are not self-fertile.
- Blueberries grow on (at least) last year's wood
- They are pretty much liked by bunnies and bambies... which does not go together with the fact that blueberries don't grow on the growth of the current year. If you can, just keep away those nosy animals from the plants with a net or similar wintertime.
This is our newly furbished blueberry bed. I do expect it to give us blueberries in large amounts by one year or two. Right now, it is mostly one of the plants that make sure we do not go hungry... :O)
The construction
The construction was at the end the following: Dug about 10cm over the board. Dug also for the new blueberries more in depth (around 30cm). Also we dug for a future grape plant in the right corner.
The area was then covered with peat.
We installed an automatic watering system where a hose goes along the back of the bed and hoses are then drawn from there to each and every blueberry shrub. The main hose is without holes, but for each plant, there is a "hole" hose for water distribution.
This whole bed was then covered with wheed fabric to avoid weed coming from the ground itself. This action payed out for this year. It might create issues later but that I do not care about now. Right now, it is indeed keeping weed to grow there. We finalized the construction by covering the fabric with bark.
As you see, it looks little "empty" right now, but I expect the plants to grow with the years.
The edges were a little of a problem: the original idea was to actually use concrete to define the edges clearly. I realized it would imply a great deal of work and cost to do so. So what we did at the end was to border the bed with bark only and have fabric under it. The automatic lawn mower should be able to go over the edges and cut all grass completely. Let us see how this works.
The Scheme
The blueberry plants we have now are:
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Goldtraube'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Elisabeth'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'North Country'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Northblue'
Vaccinum corymbosum 'Darrow'
This is the "map of blueberries".
Historical background
We started out with three blueberry plants quite a few years ago. We dug holes in the grass. This is how they looked in May 2007, when we first planted them.
 |
| May 2007 |
Blueberries are one of the best plants to have in the garden. They give good and healthy fruits (or so we hope... ;O) ). Even though you might think 3 blueberry plants give enough blueberries for the whole family, I personally wanted more. So I convinced Janne to purchase 2 more. But digging two more holes did not sound very attractive and the idea of skipping the grass between them seemed like a good idea. We were going to build a bed for the blueberries.
We actually hired a guy to do the digging. Quite a few stones had to be eliminated from the area.
 |
| May 2011 |
After a lot of discussions with the idiot we hired, and a lot of back and forth and tough work from our side, we managed to get up the bed as we intended it from the first beginning: with a lot of peat and over the grass level. This is the result after altering back and forth.
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