I LOVE BLUEBERRIES!!!

Seriously, blueberries are one of my favorite summertime fruits. Growing up as a little kid, my parents had about five bushes in our backyard and picking blueberries was always one of my chores. Although I’ll confess, I probably ate almost as many as I picked! ha!

It was time to finally make room for blueberries in our backyard!

We first started by raking back the bark dust and then digging a hole for each plant. I measured out the plant spacing while The Renaissance Man dug holes about twice the size of the root ball. We put the extra dirt into the wheel barrel to keep things clean, and each hole then received some transplant fertilizer.

The Renaissance Man made sure to loosen up the roots before placing the blueberry plants into each hole.

One important thing about blueberries is that they need to have good drainage around their roots. In order to improve the drainage, we made sure to elevate the roots and mound the dirt around the base. It also helps that our yard slopes a bit here which will help keep sitting water off the roots.

Below is the list of blueberry plants that we purchased at Al’s Garden. We tried to get a variety of plants so that they fruit at different times…hopefully we’ll have blueberries all summer!

Spartan Blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum ‘Spartan’  (left)

Early season, heavy bearer, large berry. Tangy-sweet flavor. Sun. Ht 4-6 ft by 4-6 ft.

Bluejay Blueberry,Vaccinium corymbosum ‘Bluejay’ (middle)

Medium sized, mild flavored fruits in June. Loose, easy to pick clusters that stay on stem. Sun to PM shade Ht 5-7ft.

Very hardy and drought resistant.

Bluecrop Blueberry,Vaccinium corymbosum ‘Bluecrop’ (right)

Firm, light blue medium sized fruit. Berries ripen in early August. Sweet in flavor.

Sun. Ht 4-6 ft by 4-6 ft. Needs excellent drainage.

I’m looking forward to a summer full of blueberries!