Blueberries

The crickets ate my cherries and apricots, but my blueberries are doing really well this year, and I'm looking forward to some tasty fruit in a couple months.

I currently have the following varieties:

• Duke
• Jubilee
• Darrow
• Sharpblue
• Misty
• Bluecrop
• Jersey

The Bluecrop and Jersey are new purchases and pretty tiny, I'll probably only get enough to taste off of those two plants.

Blueberries are acidic- soil loving plants(4.5-5.6 pH), like Azaleas and rhododendrons. They need pretty moist and rich soil with good drainage. Add peat moss, leaves, or straw. using a bark mulch will help keep the soil moist.

They should be fertilized in the early spring when they flower, and they produce fruit on one-year old branches, because of this pruning is necessary to encourage fruiting. This should be done in the early spring, when the buds begin to swell. Plant bushes in the fall, 1-2 inches deeper than they were in the nursery pot. Blueberries can self-pollinate but do better with another plant.

I have this book, Grow the Best Blueberries, which is a handy little guide: