How to plant and care for garden blueberries?

Landing

To prevent freezing of plants, planting is best done in spring. First, you need to choose the best place to plant your blueberries. Best of all, the berry will grow in a sunny area with a shallow level of groundwater occurrence up to 50-60 cm. In this case, blueberries should be planted on bulk mounds. Also blueberries do not like cold winds. If you plant a berry in the shade, do not expect to get a good harvest, as the fruit will be sour and small.

Next, you need to prepare the soil. The soil must be sour, loose and constantly moist. The acidity should be between 3.5 and 5 pH. With neutral indicators, the garden culture will develop poorly. If you decide to grow this garden crop, but soil indicators are not suitable, then you can create optimal conditions yourself. First, you need to dig a hole up to half a meter deep and measuring 60 by 60 cm. We loosen the soil a little, promoting the flow of air and water. Next, fill the hole with a mixture of peat, sawdust, needles and sand or slightly decomposed peat.

If it is necessary to acidify the soil, add 40-60 g of sulfur. You can also use citric acid, oxalic acid, malic acid, or acetic acid. We condense all this. In this way, we create the perfectly acidic soil required for the cultivation of garden blueberries. The culture can develop on poor soils, so it is not yet necessary to add fertilizers, especially organic ones. Bushes are usually planted at a distance of 0.75 - 1.2 cm. The size depends on which variety is used for low or tall. If you purchased seedlings in containers, then you need to place them in water for 10-15 minutes, and then remove the bush from the container. When planting, the root system is recommended to be carefully straightened for the further normal development of the bush. The beds are advised to be placed every 2-2.5 m, and a layer of sawdust should be poured between the rows.

There are two more ways to plant seedlings: in wells and on a ridge. In the first case, holes are dug up to 40 cm deep and 60-150 cm wide.If the soil is sandy, 60-80 cm wide will be enough, with heavy soils, the value should be up to 1.5 m.Sometimes, plastic wrap is covered on the walls and the wells are filled with a mixture described earlier. When planting on a ridge, the soil is removed to a depth of 10 cm. A substrate in the form of a mound or ridge is poured into a trench 1-1.2 m wide. A blueberry bush is planted on top and watered.

Care

Blueberries are unpretentious berries, but they still need care. Frequent weeding is especially important. As long as the bushes are small, weeds can inhibit their growth. It is worth remembering that the root system of the plant lies 20-40 cm from the surface of the earth.Therefore, when loosening the soil, do not touch the layers of the earth deeper than 10 cm. Like almost all garden crops, blueberries are exposed to fungal, bacterial or viral diseases. Late blight, stem cancer, gray rot can be especially dangerous. To prevent these diseases, fungicides should be used. It is advised to spray immediately after spring pruning. There are practically no pests in blueberries, so there is no point in treating the bushes from insects.

Watering

When growing blueberries, it is worth remembering the water regime of the plant. This garden culture is very fond of water. After planting, you need to water the bushes two or three times a day. Then you can reduce watering to twice a week. This is best done in the evening or morning. In dry and hot weather, it is worth spraying the leaves. When the plants begin to bear fruit, it is imperative to water the bushes abundantly for the juiciness of the berries. However, do not overdo it, experienced gardeners warn against excess moisture. In this case, the roots may begin to rot and the plant will die.

Pruning

The first pruning is recommended 2-4 years after planting, when the skeleton of the bush has already been formed. To do this, cut off all branches with fruit buds. Further, after 5-6 years, it is necessary to carry out similar activities.

Pruning of bushes is carried out only in the spring.

Garden blueberry pruning scheme

It is necessary to have time to cut off non-fruiting, diseased, broken branches before the buds swell. They will not give a crop, and the plant will spend energy on their development. If the plant is 10-12 years old, anti-aging pruning is recommended. To do this, you can delete all old branches. In this case, the bushes will not bear fruit well for 2-3 years. There is another option. In the first year, we prune only part of the old branches. The next year, we leave new shoots, and the old ones that remain are removed.

Top dressing and mulching

You cannot feed blueberries with organic fertilizers. This leads to a decrease in the level of acidity of the soil, which, therefore, can lead to the death of the plant or a decrease in yield. Therefore, it is recommended to use mineral fertilizers twice in the spring. The first application is carried out before swelling of the kidneys, and the second after 6-7 weeks. Usually it is advised to feed, depending on the age of the plant. If the bush is 2 years old, 1 tablespoon of mineral fertilizer is applied, 3 years - 2 tablespoons, 4 years - 4, 5 years - 8, and after 6 years 16 tablespoons.

Experienced gardeners, by the appearance of the plant, determine what kind of substance they pick up. With a nitrogen deficiency, the leaves turn yellowish, the plant grows poorly, the berries become small. If the plant lacks phosphorus, the leaves turn purple. If there is not enough potassium, the tips of the leaves begin to die off, spots appear, and young shoots die off. The edges of the leaves turn yellow when there is a lack of calcium. Magnesium deficiency is seen along the red edges of the leaves. If the tip becomes bluish, boron should be added. Thus, it is possible to determine precisely such a substance that the plant lacks, and to make up for this deficiency, preventing a decrease in yield or even the death of a bush.

Mulching is carried out in order to prevent moisture loss. Peat, oak leaves, sawdust are used as mulch. The mixture is distributed with a thickness of 10-12 cm. It should be noted that the decomposition of the mulch contributes to the additional nutrition of the plant. Scientists have proven that when mulching with sawdust, crop yields increase by 100%, and when using oak leaves by 54%. Mulch also prevents the soil from overheating during hot periods. To prevent the roots of the plant from freezing in the aisles, green manure is left - lupine and oats. In the spring they are buried in the soil. It is necessary to change the mulch every 2-3 years.

Shelter for the winter

Garden blueberry is a fairly frost-resistant culture. Plants can withstand frosts up to 23-25 ​​degrees.But in the case of a snowless winter, it is advised to cover the bushes. Late-ripening varieties are most susceptible to freezing. It is advised to cover such plants with burlap. In preparation for winter, it is necessary to bend the branches of the bushes to the ground using twine or wire arcs. Further, in fact, we cover the blueberries with non-woven fabric or burlap, but it is not recommended to use polyethylene. In winter, the bushes can be sprinkled with snow, thus protecting them from severe frosts. The flowers of the culture can withstand frosts up to 7 degrees, so when the heat comes, the shelter can be removed.

Harvesting

Now is the time to consider the question of when to start harvesting? First of all, it depends on the variety of garden blueberry. When planting early varieties, you can enjoy the berries already from the first decade of July, and the late varieties are harvested at the end of August. Garden blueberry varieties Patriot and Duke are classified as early. Bushes begin to bear fruit early, in the first decade of June. Mid-season varieties include Blue Сrop, Blue Rey, Berkeley, they begin to bear fruit at the end of June and until August. These varieties are recommended for growing in the Moscow region. Also note that the fruits do not ripen at the same time, so you can pick berries for a whole month or even more. The ripeness of blueberries can be determined by their color - green changes to bluish. In sunny weather, harvesting will be possible in a week. The fruit should be easy to separate from the bush. Usually, from the first harvest, the berries are large and juicy, then the fruits become smaller.

Now you know almost everything about planting and caring for garden blueberries. Follow all recommendations and enjoy rich berry yields.

Video "Planting technology and care for blueberries "

In the video, a woman talks about the peculiarities of planting blueberries, as well as how to increase fruiting and how to cut off shoots.