Blueberries, and the Travails Thereof

Some blueberries 2007 3 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Planting Blueberries

Greetings, dear reader.  Thanks for dropping by.  You may have been here more than me lately.  While we were gone Old Uncle Milton managed to secure a couple telephone poles over twenty feet long, drag them out past the blackberry bushes, get them filled with natural sand and install some variety of blueberry plants into them.

Our History of Blueberries

If one read about blueberries they will learn how easy they are to grow.  How they are chock full of antioxidants.  How beautiful the bushes become in fall.

All true, IF you don’t have the heaviest, thick-as-a-brick clay soil.  We have tried three (Yeah, 3) separate seasons to get a patch started.  The net result was one stinkin blueberry.  Two plants survived to the second season.  Then one died.  The other produced one berry.

Then it died.

Going Forward

We opted for the raised bed.  Telephone poles for the sides.  Feed bags laid down between the poles as a weed barrier.  Ten thousand pounds of natural sand, delivered by a great friend with a tilt trailer.  About five cubic yards of peat moss.  And about 500 pounds of topsoil.  This turned out to be a great family project with the Little Princess offering the most help; but Princess and Junior were there when we needed them.  And it all worked out fine.

Until…

The stinkin dogs decided that it would be a good ole time to get in the giant sandbox and do a little digging.  And chewing.  And landscape rearrangement.

Let’s just say that they, and Milton came to a little *understanding*.  “Nuff said.

And now there is a four foot fence around the perimeter.  We’ll keep on watering, and waiting.  And seeing.

Related articles

• Weed Control in Blueberries (inspired-weightloss.com)
• Blueberries: The Third Year it Leaps! (gardeningnirvana.wordpress.com)
• Growing Blueberries: How to Grow Blueberries Organically (growinganything.com)

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