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Mine are all in the ground. The O’Neil and blueray have been in the ground almost 10 years. I do very little to care for them, just normal pruning, some soil acidifier twice a year and I water them when there is a big dry spell. No spraying at all, but I have mine completely covered with bird netting. This is only my second year with the sweetcrisp in the ground, but I got quite a few berries already and the plants are thriving.
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I would agree with that. So far I have not been able to get Sweetcrisp to fruit, 4th year, not one berry. It’s time to give it up. It’s just too cold. Ironic as Indigocrisp is growing like crazy, but the berries to me are bland. First to ripen here.
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Location, location. All I have to do is cover the blueberries so the birds don’t eat them and every few years prune them a little. The only fruit I grow that is easy.
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I decided to put Sweetcrisp in a raised bed, and see what happens. I almost killed it trying to overwinter in a pot. It was outside all winter and lived, so this is going to be interesting. Oh Indigcrisp is ripe, 2nd year, and you know the berries are better. Not my favorite, didn’t seem that crisp, But I only ate one, the darn birds ate most of them, and ate them green! That caught me off guard! I’m on it now! It has more. They ate about 100 berries off of 9 plants! (&^%#%)_(*&^!!!
I spent the day netting everything!
Toro is ripening too, not crisp at all, but man it is so sweet! One of my wife’s favorites. This blueberry is really low acid,
I figured out that my problem in pots was they became too acidic. I ran out of test strips early last year, that was a fatal mistake! I have them now and discovered the problem.
Long Island has acidic soils. Blueberries are probably native. The desert is a whole other ballgame.
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Yes in my area Bluberries at least for now are my easiest to grow. Fertilize once a year and keep critters away.
Yes, I’ve found them growing in dry sandy soil but close to the bay so plenty of humidity and very large ones in very wet soil.
How large are the berries of Bonus compared to Chandler? Can you also describe the flavor of
this one? I like “sprightly” fruit… trying to decide to add this to my order this spring.
Any experience with Nelson?
I ended up adding these two last spring after reading this thread. I put them in containers and had planned on bringing them in each winter to protect them from the cold. I didn’t, mostly because I’m in over my head with figs at the moment, and was pleasantly surprised to see that they didn’t die and didn’t have much winter damage after spending all winter out in the cold unprotected. I remember @Drew51 saying he had winter damage even in his garage, so this is a bit of a mystery to me, but I’ll take it.
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Yeah it started growing early so was hit afterward. Probably better outside.
It’s still not doing great. Has some damage this yer too, but should have some fruit I hope!
Since this is a bloob discussion, I was wondering how other folks’ plants are doing. That is, have they woken up yet, and if so, is this the usual time you’ve seen them come out of dormancy?
I planted 4 last year, and one is showing some teeny little leaves, two show smaller buds, while the other still looks asleep (I hope it hasn’t croaked). Yesterday I gave all of them about a cup of Hollytone fertilizer, is that a proper amount?
Jewel. Sweetcrisp, Springhigh and Pink Lemonade are about 1 week away from full bloom, my northern high bushes are about 2 weeks out, here in NYC.
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Thanks, maybe my plants are just taking their time getting up and running. I think that fourth plant has some very teeny buds on it now, so maybe it’s okay.
@Drew51 what state are your bloobs in? Don’t they stay outside in pots year round? I gave them about a cup of Hollytone on Sat, is that a good amount? I hope I didn’t give them too much, but I also want them to get going this year. I’m thinking they might need another shot of fert in a couple months as well?
I’m in Michigan and I have 11 plants 6 are in raised beds, and 5 are in containers. And all stay outside year round. The 2 Southern Highbush have overhead protection because they are in hard pots. I’m going to put them in root pouches and leave outside with no protection next year. Sweetcrisp struggles, but if it can’t make it here, i don’t want it.
The amount of holly-tone sounds right, you could use Ammonium sulfate once a month and that will make it grow. Even every 2 weeks while growing. Hard to put too much organic, but you can kill it with too much AS. I’m very careful with it and use about a teaspoon in 2.5 gallon (what my watering can holds). I also give them organic once a month till August, then stop. I give both the 1st of the month. AS works right away, the organic takes 2 weeks, so they get food pretty much constantly. By the time the AS is gone the HT is kicking in. Lately I have not been using AS, but a couple products that have AS and PK plus micros. In my pots I don’t use AS as they become too acidic (AS acidifies soils very well) so I use MirAcid which is urea (will not change pH). For blueberries the only nitrogen you can give them is AS or urea. Other forms (nitrates) can harm your plant. Regular fertilizer can harm your plant.
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Here in western Louisiana my blueberries are going good on average, I am growing about a dozen varieties, mostly 1 of each, though I have 4 pink lemonades and 2 sweet crisps. Generally a mix of southern high bush and rabbiteye. The two Sweetcrisps are in a plot of 8 blueberry bushes that I planted 18 months ago (Also Farthing, Savory, Vernon, Brightwell, IndigoCrisp and Powder Blue), and are outperforming all but one of the others in overall growth by a wide margin. I am way past the bloom stage here, in fact a few of my sweetcrisp berries are almost ripe, now if the birds would only stop getting them, before I get to taste one. The one that is lagging behind the most is the IndigoCrisp (which is about 1/4 to 1/3 of the size of the SweetCrisp and has no berries this year), followed by Savory, with Powder Blue being at the middle point in overall growth.
The other ones that I have been most impressed with are the Pink Lemonades which were planted about 8 months before this plot as bare roots and are now almost as large as the SweetCrisps (actually taller, but thinner) which were in 3 gallon pots when planted.
Thanks. I was hoping for a bit more growth out of them last year, but only ferted them once, so that might explain their sorry progress. My Blueray grew a very tall (3’) main cane and another shorter one but not much else. The other three were more bush-like, no more than a couple feet tall. I guess it’ll be next year before I’ll get any fruit off them.
I am pleased how my gooseberry plants did, that one that got run over by a truck last year is now about 2’ tall with about 4 good canes. The others are smaller but seemed to be doing well, they’ve all got leaves on them now. I replaced the Hinnomaki Red plant that croaked last year with one I got from Tractor Supply. It now has little green buds on it. I gave all of them except the new one about half a cup of HT as well.
I went out to the backyard strawberry patch today and saw quite a few blossoms on them. Some were black, I assume they got frostbit, but it’s exciting to see the other good blooms. Is it true you don’t fertilize strawbs in the spring like other fruits? I read that it could affect the fruit in an adverse way.
No I don’t, after they fruit I fertilize them monthly like I do almost all my plants except trees.
I guess they will grow leaves and not much fruit if fertilized beforehand. That is what I heard, but never really tested them. Some compost might be good and it is so light on nitrogen it should not do this. I heard this about raspberries too, but I have found they do poorly without food. But it may be my local conditions? I don’t know? Feed them very well in the fall (strawberries) and they should have plenty to grow well till after fruiting the next spring. I cover mine and many stay green all winter even here. Sometimes when not covered well the leaves die yet they come back, should probably fertilize these.
Blueberries really differ cultivar to cultivar, and they are not tremendous growers either. I still sometimes only get a couple canes to grow too. With mine I think it’s the pH is not right. they need it at about 5.0. If not there, too high or too low, they fail to grow well.
I had a Toro that was eaten by my dog, only one cane remained. It took 2-3 years to fruit, and it soon died after it did. I like the berries so much I bought another one and it is growing like a weed. Completely different than my first Toro. Producing and growing better. Dumb luck sometimes! Once compromised they seem to take forever to recover.
The Toro is the sweetest blueberry i ever had, almost pure sugar. But, and a big BUT, is that it is so soft it’s almost mushy. Still I like the sweetness a lot!
The best tasting one for me is Cara’s Choice, it is a compact medium vigor, medium production plant. The berries are very good with a complex flavor. I never had a sweetcrisp, it just refuses to grow here. I would at least like a few flowers so I can cross it with Cara’s Choice. maybe the offspring will grow here? Legacy is a tremendous grower i should probably cross with that too. I highly recommend Legacy. Still too young is Spartan, Ka-Bluey, Pink Popcorn, and Razz. I will report on them with time. I really like blueberries, if I had room, i would add many many more.
After a cold spring, we are two weeks behind schedule, but the Minnesota-bred blueberries are up and at ‘em.
NORTHSKY half-high in full bloom today. You can see @mrsg47’s froggy windchime sitting in the pot:
NORTHCOUNTRY is almost there:
I leave these guys in pots outside all winter. They are ultra hardy. Now if they would only give me heaps of berries… maybe this is the year?
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Matt I feel this year is your year! Looking really great!
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