Introducing the blueberries
A mass of blueberry
bushes arrived in the mail on Friday afternoon --- thank you Heather
and Kira! They've been heeled in while Mark and I prepare their
new homes, a process that may take a few days since some box-elders
have to come down to provide light and I have to acidify the soil,
which is currently too wet to work.
Soil acidification appears to be a more contentious topic than I
knew. Most people add sulfur to lower soil pH before planting
blueberries, but I've read a few reports that the sulfur gives the
berries a bitter taste (and I'm always leery of chemicals.) Other
people suggest modifying the soil with tea bags and citrus peels, both
of which we have in profusion. Or peat moss (which I'm morally
opposed to, so won't use) and/or decayed pine needles (which we have
plenty of up on the hill.)
Luckily, my friends picked out two plants of each variety, so the
solution is obvious --- a paired experiment where I acidify the soil
for one set of plants chemically and for the other naturally....
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Can't wait for the results! I have three bushes. I used peat moss when I planted them as part of the soil mixture, then mulched them with a needles and bark from a Christmas tree that was thrown out after Christmas (and was left composting until last spring). This will be their second year and they didn't grow much the first year AT ALL so I added some sulfur pellets today. I also added them to my grapes, strawberry bed (to be planted next month) and my raspberries.
I do feel bad about using Peat Moss, as it isn't a renewable resource (at least not quickly) so if I could get the same results by concentrating my orange peels into a special "acid" compost pile that'd be great!
Cheers,
Everett
Shamefully, I haven't checked the PH. Our yard is full of clay soil in an arid environment (Denver) so I just assumed it was alkaline. I thought about getting a PH tester, but every online review I've read has mixed opinions, with many long-time gardeners saying those little electrode types don't work reliably even within a few points. So the other option is using the liquid test or sending in a sample to our extension agents.
Or, last and least, my current method of amend-and-pray.
Hmm, not sure why comment 5 there said it was by me. I'm assuming it was by Everett...
I hadn't looked into the reviews of electronic pH testers --- thanks for the warning! That was what I was thinking of buying! I did my initial test by sending it off to the extension agent, but would really like one I could do every year (or even more often) on my own. Maybe I'll have to get a liquid test kit...