All things Blueberry + Huckleberry

Act like an animal ate it and then pooped it out :crazy_face:

Soak in hydrogen peroxide for a little bit then stick them in the fridge for a few weeks then plant maybe? You could also stick them in a pot and not forget about said pot. Water it every now and then to keep it moist?

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Blueberries are fairly simple to start from seed. 5 gallon container, promix MPX seed start mix or similar, water. Fill container with soil mix and thoroughly dampen with water. Spread seed on the surface. Sit the container in the shade ( I use the north side of my house) until seed germinate. Keep uniformly moist. I do this by placing the 5 gallon containers in a seed start tray which is filled with water daily.

Once seed germinate, you MUST be diligent to keep them watered regularly until they develop deeper roots. They can handle partial sun after 2 or 3 weeks.

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8am and they’ve seem to also be noting what’s best…

My kabluey and sweetheart being eaten every day as soon as they turn blue… i will be bagging some lol.

I guess i should be happy at least they’re taking the entire berry and eating it…

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Star wanting to be a star and variegating

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Well I finally got my first ever small blueberry crop after trying for years to grow the darn things in the ground and throwing every acidic product known to man in their soil and on them, digging them up and re-doing the soil, etc. The bushes would look better for a while, but then begin their slow, sad decline after several weeks. I think my soil has some property that makes it neutralize all that acid I put in the soil. This is limestone country with many caves and sinkholes here in southern Indiana.
I managed to kill at least 4 bushes, but my Bonus bush did hold on for a few seasons and even made a few berries which the birds ate while still green and even with realistic-looking fake snakes hanging in the bush. Those stupid snakes scared me every day far more than they scared the birds! I threw the snakes in the back of the gator and forgot about them and about gave my husband a heart attack when he was rummaging in there for something and came across them. Ha ha! He did not really find it that funny.
So I finally took the advice of several people on here and potted them up in large containers last fall using pine fines and peat moss and a bit of sulfur for good measure and fertilizing them with Jack’s classic acid fertilizer. Left them out on the patio all winter. Elliott and Legacy did not make it, but they were almost dead when potted up. Bonus looked bigger and a bit better and survived the winter and put up a couple of new shoots. Also made some big berries and the leaves look better than they ever have.
I bought two more 2 gallon potted blueberries this spring, St Cloud and Hannah’s Choice. Still need to pot them up to large containers. St. Cloud also has a few berries on it. Below is a photo of my small first harvest. There are still a few more unripe berries to pick.



The larger berries on the top row are Bonus, which the description said is named Bonus because the berries are so large, and they certainly are. The St Cloud berries are on the bottom row. A good bit smaller, but they are in a small pot, so that may affect berry size, don’t know. However, they seem a normal size for a blueberry. I like the flavor of Bonus very much so far, despite blueberries not being my favorite berry. St Cloud had an average flavor to me, but may improve with time.
I have to give Bonus points for struggling along when all the other bushes died, so maybe I am just being partial toward it.
Sandra

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We had some pretty heavy rain the other day followed by hot humid weather and this slime mold popped up overnight in one of my blueberry pots. It’s currently just on the mulch. I know a bit about fungus but I am less knowledgeable about slime molds and don’t know if this is actually hazardous to the plant or not. I do think it’s really neat, but if it can harm the blueberry, I will remove it to a spot it can’t mess with my stuff.

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Slime molds do not hurt the plants near them; they are just creeping around eating bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms on dead matter. I did notice a negative effect on some small seedlings that they sort of smothered.

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I have noticed most slime molds on wood chips either dry up into dust or possibly it is just tons of spores. Either way, at some point you hit it with a hose and a cloud of dust/spores plumes up. The first time I almost got a snoot full, which I’m sure would not have been great for my lungs, so I now stand well back when watering any mulch with molds.

The ones we get are more globular looking and most people call them by the lovely common name of dog vomit molds.

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I have noticed a pretty big change in the flavor of my blueberries when moved from small pots to large pots and allowed to mature to 3 or so years old - always for the better. The ones in the ground are the most consistent in taste, but my soil is close to blueberry friendly than it sounds like you are dealing with.

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@zendog Great! I will look forward to tasting some St Cloud blueberries in a couple of years as the bush matures in its large pot. Hopefully they will have an above average flavor then. The shrub does look nice and healthy so I hope it stays that way. I think big containers with peat and pine fines is the way to go for me to grow blueberries.
Sandra



So far, the newer varieties are my favorites. Photo are of Clockwork (top) and Top shelf (bottom photo)

For some reason, sweetheart has been riddled with half mummy berry as with almost all of BlueRay. Blueray is small right now but if this keeps up next year, it’s gone-gone.

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just noticed that only one of my blueberries set fruit and it only set one :joy: probably was pollinated by one of my other plants that didnt get pollinated. i dont remember multiple plants flowering though.

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Question for you as I’m thinking about putting something in a large container planted as you did with the blueberries- do you plan on digging them up every year or two to root prune inside the container? Or do you expect them not to get root bound bc of the 3” holes?

Honestly, I’d love to have this problem. I don’t expect them to get that big. If I did start to see signs of them being root bound, I guess I would.

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Tasted my first handful of Pink Popcorn blubs and they were incredibly sweet for a blueberry. Very little pink color to them, almost pure white with a few having a pink blush

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My mislabeled sweet crisp from plant me green tastes delicious and like an Illinois everbearing mulberry!

I have 3 “not Sweetcrisp” from them and they’ve all tasted fantastic but my first “not Sweetcrisp” is not very productive so far but amazing in taste.

Also the cranberry fly moths have started showing up and i bit into one yesterday :face_with_spiral_eyes: i thought their frass was the same thing as the old flower… only to see a head looking out at me like “whhhyyy” :nauseated_face::face_vomiting: had to rinse with 90% isopropyl alcohol after that. I don’t know if we have any drinking alcohol in the house lol.

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New blueberry additions update:

Peach sorbet tastes terrible compared to all others.

I have 2 bushes and they both don’t taste very good. May use it as just a hedge bush for birds and whoever wants to eat them.

Kind of sad that some of my bird friends disappeared recently.

I added some motion sensored sprinklers and i think i scared off my crow and raven buddies

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Turns out, sweetheart is one of my sweetest and best tasting varieties.

Clockwork takes WEEKS to sweeten up :weary: even after turning dark blue, i had to wait over 2 weeks for it to sweeten up.

O Neal has been surprisingly tasty as well.

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Did the mummifying stop of blueray and sweetheart? I have 2 of each planted on my foundation. One blueray (from stark’s last fall, the better one was from burpee) looks terrible and I’m going to replace along with the very overpriced liberty that truly hates life- it’s leaves refuse to green up and it appears half dead. Same soil as the rest of the blueberries with healthy leaves and growth! This fall, I’ll see if it can go back to health in a container. For the liberty spot, I’m thinking about trying a rabbiteye (climax/premier or yadkin/Brightwell with one in container), or another SHB like O’Neal or Jubilee, for the second blueray spot that is still full afternoon sun but shaded until around 1030/11a NHB Hannah’s choice (if I can find it), Draper, Spartan, Reka, keecrisp/sweetcrisp (if can find)…there are way too many blueberry options. Anyone with an opion on the varieties listed for a hot spot that dries out quickly? I’ve read everything on here.

In ground, I also have patriot (thriving) and jersey (getting by) and then containers of Elliot, another blueray, legacy and northland.

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Yeah! I think it was because of the stink bugs. As soon as the wasps came and made home nearby, i stopped seeing so many stink bugs and the mummy berries stopped.

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