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| I live in Chicagoland (southwest) and our PH is around 7.2 and not conducive to blueberries. I've heard changing PH is a pain and it tends to bounce back and is a constant battle. Would a raised bed work with adding my own soul with PH around 6.0? If so how deep would the soil in the bed need to be? And what mix of soil should I use (sand, organic, clay etc.)? |
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| Yes, you could do it that way. For decades, they didn't think it was possible to grow blueberries in your yard, like until 1950 or so, because they didn't realize that they liked acidic soils. Blueberries also like fungal based soil, so make sure you have some old wood in there. They don't like competition and they need water if it's hot and dry in the summer. John S PDX OR |
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My soil is 6.5 a little better than yours, but I still use raised beds. 1 foot high 4x4 worked for me I used 40% pine bark fines, 40% peat moss (at this point soil PH is at 5 or so), and 20% bagged garden soil. I added sulfur too, water with rainwater and acidify it to 5.0 with sulfuric acid. Sometimes just straight rainwater. Works well for me! I have 3 plants in raised beds, and 4 in pots. I have strawberries as a ground cover, but keep them away from the base of the plants. Use Holly-Tone, Cottonseed meal , or some kind of acidic fertilizer. Do not use regular fertilzer, as most contain nitrogen as nitrates, which blueberries do not like. Acidic fertilzer only! Here are recent photos , and they are showing fall colors. If red in the summer, you have a problem. Chandler  Toro  Chandler fruit |
This post was edited by Drew51 on Mon, Nov 17, 14 at 0:07
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| Here's a view of my raised beds what I first put them in.
I added many more beds since first construction. Now it's a jungle! Oh, you do not want a soil with PH around 6.0 that is still too high! 5.0 is what to shoot for. |
This post was edited by Drew51 on Mon, Nov 17, 14 at 0:15
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| I can't vouch for this planting-in-a-bale-of-peat method myself since I haven't tried it. But it seems reasonable in that the naturally acidic and well-buffered peat would maintain acidic conditions even when surrounded by non-acidic soil and watered with alkaline tapwater, and without the hassle of regular soil tests and sulfur additions. Anyway, here's the link: http://frontrangefoodgardener.blogspot.ca/2010/01/blueberry-growing-intense-in-colorado.html |
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| Milehighgirl has had success with this method, but my problem with it is blueberries are very long lived. Recently a user posted about his 12 year old plants. The peat will be long gone in 12 years, My method is not perfect either, the organic matter also will disappear with time. I would mound the plant high in the center of the bed, to avoid it sinking down as the organic matter decomposes. So far mine are fine and have sunk little. I add pine bark every year too. I found some excellent pine bark sold as a soil conditioner at a private nursery. it is difficult to find good pine bark the right size, 1/8 inch to 1/2 inch. I mulch my beds with pine needles too. |
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| I just wonder how the blueberry plants do in the wild. The spongy media they stay eventually will decay and drop the level. The plants can grow new roots and spread to higher level, but the crown of the old plants can't move up, but can only go down. So one possibility is that, the plants will renew themselves. More new plants come up and old plants die. The trees keep dropping leaves and needles to replenish the decayed plant materials. This is a rather slow process. In home garden, I'd imagine the plants will sink somehow when the organic matters decay under the plants. But since most of the soil is regular soil, the depth is small. This is why in commercial planting, the blueberries are planted on a mound, but heavily mulched. The decayed mulch provides a lot of the nutrients the plants need. |
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- Posted by harvestman 6 (My Page) on Mon, Nov 17, 14 at 11:52
| I believe the crown can gradually grow up in woody perennials, but this is just a logical leap. When plants are planted too deeply they may die, but if they don't, the roots often come out of the trunks higher up, even on trees that do not layer well. Obviously this can be a problem with apple trees on dwarfing root stocks. |
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| I do not know exactly how this is done. But when I visited NJ Pine Barren Reserve, all the wild blueberry bushes are short and spreading. All the roots stay at the top few inches of the organic spongy. I did not see any tall and dense bushes. They grow at the skirt of the tall trees, a lot of pine trees. So it looks like the wild blueberry grows like a low hedgerow, not a strong bush as cultivated. The real wild bushes are like the bush Jap. honeysuckle and rosa multi-flora. I'm not sure if those are highbush or lowbush. |
This post was edited by RedSun on Mon, Nov 17, 14 at 12:42
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| Wild highbush exist, often used in breeding like V. darrowii which is sort of a wild SHB. NHB has Vaccinium corymbosum as the wild species used. It can grow 12 feet high. Vaccinium angustifolium the lowbush is more of a ground cover type. I don't know much about rabbiteye plants. Many of the modern cultivars have numerous wild and older cultivars in the lineage. Some have very complex crosses done over decades Let look at Pink Lemonade. PINK LEMONADE is a hexaploid that is half V. ashei Reade (rabbiteye) and half synthetically-derived, hexaploid, highbush-type germplasm. It has been evaluated in New Jersey and Oregon. PINK LEMONADE was partially derived from a pink-fruited sibling of ‘Pink Champagne’ (i.e. G-434), thus the two selections are related, even though they possess different ploidy levels. PINK LEMONADE is a cross of NJ 89‑158‑1 x Delite (V. ashei) and was originally tested as ARS 96-138. The female I added Cara's Choice because it's Ehlenfeldt's favorite blueberry. CARA'S CHOICE, a new highbush blueberry cultivar with improved sweetness, firmness, and flavor. Tested under both G-695 and ARS 95-5, CARA'S CHOICE is a progeny from the cross G-144 x US 165. G-144 originated from the cross 11-93 (a sibling of 'Bluecrop') x 'Darrow'. US 165 is a self of US 79, a hybrid of the diploid species Vaccinium darrowii 'Fla 4B' x US 56. US 56 originated from a cross of hexaploid V.constablaei x T-65. T-65 is a rabbiteye hybrid from the cross of 'Walker' x 11-180 (= 'Myers' x 'Black Giant'). The cross that produced CARA'S CHOICE was made by A.D. Draper at Beltsville, Maryland in approximately 1977. The seedling was selected in 1981 at the Atlantic Blueberry Company, Hammonton, NJ, and subsequently evaluated by A.D. Draper, N. Vorsa, A.W. Stretch and M.K. Ehlenfeldt at both Atlantic Blueberry Co. and Variety Farms in Hammonton, NJ. So you can say Cara's Choice is a Northern-Southern highbush rabbiteye. Same with Pink Lemonade. Yet they are so different. |
This post was edited by Drew51 on Mon, Nov 17, 14 at 13:20
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