10 Top Tips
Blueberry Bushes - Planting & Care
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Follow these simple tips about planting and caring for your raspberry bushes to ensure they bear a good crop of fruit for many years.
- Select a sunny sheltered site with well drained soil.
- Plant in late Autumn or early Winter spacing bushes 1.5m apart.
- Blueberry plants need an acidic soil so test the soil before planting. If it is neutral or alkaline you should mix in a 15cm layer of an ericaeous compost to a depth of 60cm.
- Blueberries should be mulched in the Spring. Pine needles make an ideal mulch because they are acidic.
- Blueberry plants will require watering from the time their buds show in the Spring to when the leaves drop in the Autumn. Remember always to use rainwater as tap water contains lime.
- Blueberries produce fruit on the previous year's wood.
- It is not necessary to prune for the first two or three years except for removing dead wood and keeping the plant tidy.
- Older blueberry bushes must be pruned between November and March each year in order to retain their vigour. See links below for further details.
- Rememer the blueberries will ripen at different times on the same bush. They are ready to pick when are a deep blue and fall easily away from the cluster.
- Eat blueberries immediately after picking or store in the fridge in a shallow tray (or freeze).
Useful Web Resources on Blueberry Bushes- Planting & Care
BBC Gardening - Growing Blueberries - growing tips, maintenance, pruning and aftercare.
The Dorset Blueberry Company - feeding, weeding, pruning, spraying and bird control for blueberry plants.
Blueberries - RHS help and advice - preparation, planting and position, aftercare, pruning, flowering and pollination, harvesting, pests and diseases, propagation.
Other Pages about Blueberry Plants
Blueberry Plants - Selecting Varieties
Blueberry Plants - Six Best Sites
