Catalogue season

[burnie]

Had my first catalogue in the post and am now planning for next year, one thing I've never grown is Blue berries, any recommendations or tips for a good crop? My soil is thin and sandy coastal, so I think containers might be the way to go in ericaceous compost, will that work do you think?

[greenishfing]

My soil is heavy clay. I originally started with 3 tiny plants from my local garden centre in pots in ericaceous compost. They did really well and I have since added another 2 plants. I will shortly be potting them all up to bigger (very big) pots. I have different varieties and most days from July onwards I get a handful.

[Vince G]

Hi Burnie, my soil is very light too, although I'm not coastal. I have two blueberries in the ground in my fruit cage as I found that they struggled in tropical East Anglia even in large containers as they need to be kept quite damp. So I dug a pit about 18 inches deep with a bit of old plastic compost bag at the bottom to retain mosture, but with holes punched so it doesn't waterlog, then I filled it with a mix of ericaceous compost and some of the soil I dug out. Planted the 2 bushes in that and they're thriving. They get rain water from the butts which contain comfrey leaves, and get an annual mulch with needles from the Christmas tree and the occasional top up of more ericaceous compost. I also acquired a couple of patio slabs which I sunk down the sides to help stop the ericaceous leeching out into the general soil a bit.

[burnie]

Thanks for the ideas folks, the varieties I have chosen are Duke and Liberty, they also recommend an Ericaceous feed, my thoughts are that after planting in new compost the first year, they probably won't need the liquid feed, or will they want it to give a boost for new growth, not sure on that one. As they are pot grown in 2 litre pots I shall wait until the New Year before buying and then pot them on when they arrive.