Blueberry Questions

[Lumpy]

I am thinking about getting some blueberries to put in pots and have found out that they need acidic soil.......

can I make acidic soil myself or will I have to buy it?

I also found out that I need more than one plant to help pollination and saw an offer for 2 blue Top Hats and a Pinkberry.....

if they cross pollinate will my blueberries go pink or my pink berry go blue?

[Nicos]

I would imagine the pinkberry will have more fruit if it has 2 others to pollinate it.
And have pink berries.
It's the fruit seeds , should you choose to save them, which would produce unkown coloured berries when they fruited.

I can't imagine they'd be sold as a group of 3 if by cross pollinating caused the pink top lose it's colour! `

looks an interesting plant, the fruit is supposed to be sweeter!

[Bigmallly]

To help acidify your soil, you could add coffee grounds or pine needle.

[Invicta]

Blueberry

I would recommend that you plant in ericaceoue compost. My garden soil is acid clay and I successfully grow acid lovers like Azalea, Camellia and Pieris. However when I planted Blueberries they were unhappy and performed badly. When I transferred them to large pots of ericaceous soil there was a massive improvement and they have produced plenty of fruit since then.

[Lumpy]

That's for that you wonderful lot.....I've just got to try and get my head around a pink blueberry.

p.s if ericacous? soil is used in pots do you have to use an acid rich feed as well?

[KevinM67]

Buy Blueberry Plants and Bushes UK Nationwide Delivery

Lumpy - I got a mix of 5 x Blueberry Plants from this mob last spring. The plants are cheap enough, however delivery was about £8 or£9.
The quality of the plants were fantastic, but they're not normally in stock until Spring time.

(I don't work for them, nor get commission, or any other benefits - so please feel free to delete link if inappropriate).

My plants were plonked in a biggish bed up the plot, which had been prepped a couple of times with yellow sulphur over a number of months. Each plant was planted with a big amount of ericaceous compost surrounding them, then fed regularly with an appropriate feed.

Some great info on here about adding coffee grounds and citrus fruit skins - although Kristen showed evidence last year that pine needles had no great effect on acid-loving plants. (although, with the amount of trees needing disposed of at this time of year - I can't see the harm in adding them to the soil)

Anyway, my plants still seem to be doing well, they have spread well since I got them and currently have loads of buds. Once, Spring comes around I'll replace a good bit of the soil around them with fresh ericaceous compost, and again feed them religiously with the right supplements.

My favourite fruit - so I'm prepared to spoil it a bit.

[Filbert]

You definitely get better crops with more than one plant and they can be fussy as has been said, so I would just buy some bagged compost. There are lots of varieties available some early and some late fruiting if you want to berries for longer.

[BUFFS]

That's for that you wonderful lot.....I've just got to try and get my head around a pink blueberry.

p.s if ericacous? soil is used in pots do you have to use an acid rich feed as well?

if they are potted up in the acidic compost just give them a feed in the spring, (beginning of march) and I give another handful late july... they seem to prosper on this routine. watch out for blackbirds, I have never seen such persistant birds when blueberries are available, I had to put 2 layers of netting around my fruit as they tore their way thru the single layer, last year they cleared 3 large bushes overnight and we got a total of 2....

[sugar]

I planted my blueberries in big containers, burried in the ground. The compost used in the containers is ericacous. They grow very well (but need to be irrigated (with rain water) during the summer droughts. Plants are limited in growth but yield is very good.


If you just dig a hole in the ground and treat that part of the soil, the acidity of the soil will be neutralised over the next years. There is a commercial Blueberry grower (fruit) growing all of his plants in big containers on a soil-polluted industrial terrain, so it's possible to grow them succesfull in containers

Mulched these containers afterwards, looks better like this :

[BUFFS]

whatever you decide never ever let them dry out as they hate this , too much water does not seem to create any problems, just as well for anyone growing them round here, if we get dry weather I give each half dustbin a gallon of water a day and we get lovely big fruit as a result..

[sugar]

whatever you decide never ever let them dry out as they hate this , too much water does not seem to create any problems, just as well for anyone growing them round here, if we get dry weather I give each half dustbin a gallon of water a day and we get lovely big fruit as a result..

That's why I'm not using standard planting containers but mortar tubs (75 liter). I dig wholes at about halfway on the sidewalls (tubs are 15 inch high). During drought, I water them once or twice a week (10 liter for each plant).

[BUFFS]

That's why I'm not using standard planting containers but mortar tubs (75 liter). I dig wholes at about halfway on the sidewalls (tubs are 15 inch high). During drought, I water them once or twice a week (10 liter for each plant).

good, drenching is better than sprinkling some water on as it doesn't seem to seep down very much in the summer, mine are in 50ltr+ tubs and as well as coffee grounds I shred up any orange/lemon peel to be thrown onto the soil in the tub, it works better than pine needles...

[cptncrackoff]

Hi, my allotment is on the very slightly acidic side of neutral, when I bought two plants, I dug a much, much bigger hole than was needed, and filled with a mixture of moss peat, ericaceous compost and a bit of the soil.. so far, so good!
They provided a good amount of tasty berries in the first year of being in and seem happy!
I'm going to give them a good ericaceous mulch, along with anything else acidic I can lay my hands on, and if they appear to need it a good feed for acid loving plants!

Good luck

[lookbettertomorow]

Copied from another thread, no reply so i thought I would spread it about, bit like the pollen.

"Plant 2 varieties to get bigger fruit". That's what a lot say including the RHS and archived BBC. I get that you possibly get more Kilograms but bigger berries? If self fertile what can the other variety add? surely once the first variety has been pollinated by the first visit of a buzz bee which will pick up it's own pollen, jobs done? Similar to Human reproduction, once fertilized it's a done deal, door closed.

Do I need to go back to school?
Quote from the RHS

"Pollination, fruiting & harvesting

Although many blueberries are partly or fully self-pollinating, it is best to grow a minimum of two, cross-pollinated plants tend to produce larger fruit. To achieve this, plant two or preferably three different cultivars to ensure reliable, abundant crops".