I bought it a few years ago. Looks like it was originally 100x30. I halved it to 2 pieces of 50’x30’. Not sure if they were catbirds or mockingbirds but when I tried to net my cane fruit 2 years ago they were getting in some how, I’m pretty sure under the sides but I could never quite figure it out. So far so good this year. I think my mistake last time was letting them get a taste before getting the net up.
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I love unscientific test. Especially when it comes to growing things at least for me around here. Nothing goes by the book it is trial and error.
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I have a Jubilee I planted earlier this year, picked up from a local nursery - probably a 2-3 year old plant, but likely on the younger side. Everything has been relatively fine with it, other than some wrinkled leaves which seems to be endemic to young Jubilee plants (based on seeing other plants). When it did its initial bloom I pinched off everything but oddly it seems to be blooming again in late June directly coinciding with a recent growth flush. Strangely I have a Sunshine Blue doing the same thing. We have not had any recent extremely warm, dry, or wet weather other than the odd warm Feb and March. It’s mostly been a lot of marine layer overcast mixed with sunny days, although the “June Gloom” weather is more recent. Both the plants look relatively healthy sans a few leaf spots, etc., but nothing serious. Both plants also recently flushed. As far as fertilization goes, they were last fertilized in late May with 2 tbsp of Hollytone. I’m considering removing any and all open blooms I find.
One other thing I should note is that I actually went to a different local nursery who happened to have Jubilee plants and even some of their plants were blooming.
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Been picking off the occasional ripened blueberry off the Top Hat I recently picked up which was flush with berries. Honestly, they’re quite good with a wonderful firmness that leads a balanced punchy flavor. It’s one of the better tasting blueberries I’ve had. My only issue might be if I’ll have the chill hours for it come next year.
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Mostly for my own record, prunes on of my two older southern high bushes—jewel or emerald, lost track of which is which—and did a tiny snip here and there on the baby, that was just to remove some dead ends and redirect when it was heading to cross and get shaded out by its older siblings.
Removed one mostly leafless older cane that was in the canopy of the other, so I’m hardly counting that as a 4-5 year old cane removal. Rest was dead or crossing (within the same plant or crossing another) and tip pinching to redirect and theoretically spur new growth. We’ll have summer until October so I’m hoping plenty of time to build up potential foot bearing wood.
Will compare to the untouched sibling and see
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Blueray
Still have some pressure even with the nets. I wish my nets were heavier, the american netting ones are easily torn and I find and need to repair holes frequently
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Looks like there will be a tiny second crop on one of my tiny second year sweetheart plants. Second round clearly relies on self fertility since there aren’t any other blueberries flowering now…This plant only has 2 shoots. My other one (just to the left of this one, same soil/sun/heat) is doing substantially better with a lot of new growth and no sign of second round flowers. I’ve had a dappling of my other blueberries and sweetheart remains our favorite. Will likely start offloading plants next year and get 2 more of these for pots since they grow 4x faster for me in contains in part sun.
Just adding…I have struggled to figure out blueberries for the last 2 years. But, I feel like with @fruitnut tip of watering with dilute ammonium sulfate, finally getting there this year. Been doing about 1t/2 gallons once a week. I’m overly proud of these dark green leaves and even my most miserable Liberty is finally looking healthy!
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12 lbs of blueberries off a neighbor’s old, well established bush I’ve been allowed to harvest from. I estimate I picked more l no more than a quarter of the berries on that monster. I’m guessing Rabbiteye given the time of year but I’m no blueberry expert.
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Nice harvest. The rabbit eye can produce a huge crop.
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Jubilee still at it with the very late blooming. It’s like it’s providing a fall crop on new growth or almost as if it skipped winter. I hope it isn’t stressed somehow and going out with a bang because aside from the funky leaves it hasn’t had any significant issues.
Only references online I’ve found to second cropping or autumn/fall cropping (outside of late varieties or varieties like Perpetua, of course):
Blueberry second crop and pruning logic
Apparently Misty can also provide a small fall crop which I ironically have right next to this plant but it’s all vegetative.
I should add though that I have a Sunshine Blue also doing this (on existing growth) and another unknown variety that’s already fruited out with some random blooms but those are less notable.
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Sweetheart is reputed to crop twice. I’d think you would have a problem with cross pollination with second flowerings?
Last year my patch was just mulched with some PBM around the base and the areas in between got grass and weeds that of course grew up in the space. I had to keep fighting that, and as a result of the poor mulching practice I had a lot of mummy berry. Also we had inconsistent fruit quality, I think I was just stressing the plants out with the poor environment that I gave them. Last fall I mulched the whole cage 2 feet deep with oak leaves last year and now the berries are doing very well. Evaluations so far. Pound sign# indicates big box which means they could be mislabeled.
Exceptional:
Hannah’s Choice - Peach flavor is as advertised. Very sweet. I picked one that was very underripe and it wasn’t tart at all. Just tasted like Mott’s apple juice instead of Hannah’s Choice, which I found interesting. You get peach notes even with a pretty red back. Low ratio of berry to leaves, large berries.
Elizabeth - Sweet, aromatic. Some mummies. All but two were not “that bad” and were fed to the chickens, the two really bad ones went to the hens. Low ratio of berry to leaves, large berries.
Mediocre:
Herbert - This was the biggest mummy magnet last year. This year it’s not too bad thanks to the mulch. To get any “nice” flavor I have to pick underripe. The flavor isn’t complex at all. Just a berry with sugar, balanced with some acid but only when picked a little early. Low ratio of berry to leaves, which should indicate a good berry but doesn’t. Some mummies, all went to the hens.
Earliblue# - Overcropper with weeping branches that hit the ground with all the unsupported, heavy branches. Very high ratio of berry to leaves. Sweet but not aromatic. Large berry.
Bluecrop# - Overcropper, erect. Very low leaf to berry ratio. Sweet, boring. Large.
Berkeley#- Similar to Bluecrop. Overcropper, erect but not as much as bluecrop. Some weeping to the ground, not as bad as Earliblue. Oddly there was the occasional berry with some aroma, but overall boring to me. Larger berry than Bluecrop.
Not yet ripe:
Elliott#? - Mislabeled big box Blueray that I think is Elliott. Last year it was tart and firm, birds and SWD are not big fans of it. Given it ripens in a peak SWD window and seems resistant to it there is some utility between simply having SWD-free August berries and the fact that I can put uniform packs of “tart” berries in the freezer.
Patriot# - I put this here even though it’s in-season because it’s outside the cage so birds collect the ripe berries. I bought 2 of these at a big box store and gave 1 to my neighbor. I think it’s the real thing and not mislabeled, keeping it around for the future. Online resources including Gemini say that Patriot is a top tier pollen helper so I might as well hang onto this.
New this year are Clockwork x3, KaBluey x2, an extra Hannah’s Choice, Top Shelf x3 and Chandler. I plan to give Chandler away as a friend and work the others into the existing cage while I shuffle others around. My Clockwork are in the ground now the rest are in pots until the Fall burn + shuffle is done. Herbert might get burned first as it’s not impressing me unless I pick it a little under ripe and it’s more disease prone than the others are anyways. The Bluecrop, Berkeley and Earliblue might go to a temporary area alongside the Elliott just to keep the production capacity. Eventually I’d like to get rid of the latter 3 cultivars and keep my Elliott by itself in an area outside the fancy cage. The new varieties I plan to keep ought to be it, unless I decide to throw Cara’s over in the utility area with Elliott after I get rid of the boring stuff.
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Anyone have suggestions for starting blueberries from seed? I’m thinking of trying to grow a weird retail only variety if I come across it.
Smush the berries and separate out the seeds. Stratification for…2 months? Do they need scarification too?
What to use for seed starting mix? Is there an off the shelf confirmed very acidic one? Basically everything else I grow is the “prefers well-draining fertille soil with a neutral to slightly acidic Ph” so I’ll spend $10 or whatever on a small bag if it’s good to go.
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I only lazily tried once last year so I’m just writing to tell you not to do what I did which was smoosh an open berry into the soil. It molds.
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Many times I think that’s the best advice you can give a lot of subjects for me. Not what to do.
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So this year I planted a bunch of blueberry plants in 15 gallon fabric containers. I bought fine netting on amazon (marketed as blueberry netting 3.2ft x 5.2ft). I put stakes in the container and silicone muffin cups on the top of the stakes (secured with uv resistant reusable zip ties). Silicone is uv resistant also. It prevents the stake from piercing into the netting and gives the netting something to rest on (not the blueberry canes/branches). I have birds everywhere. So many different varieties. I don’t remember seeing this many birds around the neighborhood. Not a single berry has been taken off the 10+ blueberry plants protected by the netting. I’ve never even seen a bird attempt to try to get into the netting either.
I’ve planted the following Blueberry varieties
- Sweetheart
- Perpetua
- Duke
- Legacy
- Bluecrop
- Chandler
- Patriot
- Razz
Razz I found by complete luck. I was done buying blueberry plants. I found a website saying it’s a blueberry that tastes like a raspberry (Raspberries might be my favorite fruit of all time). Raspberry plants are super inefficient, they attract a ton of bees/yellow jackets/etc (that could be good or bad for you). I thought, let me see what this variety is about. I got several small plants of it in spring. Didn’t think I’d get any berries this year. I did in fact get them. The berries are large. Not as big as Chandler, but larger than Duke. It’s the best variety of “blueberry” I have. So incredible. Tastes just like a raspberry without any of the seed crunch of a raspberry. Blew (blue 
my mind. I’m going to clone that variety many times over. It has that sour tang of a raspberry. It’s a very difficult variety to find. I only saw one website with it in stock when I bought it. The story about it’s origin I thought is very fascinating! (quite an old blueberry variety that didn’t get an official release until 80 years after it was created. They felt like consumers wouldn’t want a “raspberry blueberry” so mostly just rare blueberry collectors had the variety). If you are a fan of raspberries, it’s a must have variety in my opinion.
Sweetheart is the 2nd best of the bunch. Such a unique flavor. There’s this floral note I keep on picking up. I love that. Very sweet and floral tasting is the way I’d describe it. I had a kid taste all the blueberry varieties and they liked Razz and Sweetheart the most too.
Perpetua is the biggest let down. The plant is young. I don’t know if the berries will improve on it. But the berries were incredible small. Like 1/5th the size of a duke blueberry. The taste is sugar water. That’s the best way to describe what I’ve tasted. Sometimes I get a “blackberry” tasting note from it. But most of the time there is nothing “berry” about it. Just tastes like straight granulated sugar in a glass of water. I bought it to pollinate sweetheart because both apparently double crop. I guess I’ll find out later if they both do in my 7B zone (you have to have long enough of a season for a double crop). The plant was quite small. I’m hoping the berries get a bit larger in the future (I do know they are supposed to be smaller than a traditional blueberry). The plant puts out an incredible amount of blueberries for the size of the plant. I’ll give it that. That’s quite impressive.
Duke reminds me of the standard store bought blueberry. But the flavor is simply way better than what you get at a grocery store (since they have to pick them early). It’s much sweeter but it has the same look, size, and blueberry notes of a store bought blueberry to me.
Patriot is another “traditional blueberry” to me. Early riping, good balanced flavor. About the same size as Duke. Ripens a little later than Duke. Probably would make incredible blueberry muffins/pancakes based on the taste.
Legacy - Traditional blueberry taste. Prolific amount of berries on the plant that I have. By far the most of any of the varieties.
Chandler - Largest blueberry of the bunch that I have. Very large berries. The berry flavor seems to be more diluted than the other blueberries (perhaps that happens due to the size of the berry). The flavor reminds me of wild blackberry and blueberry combined.
Bluecrop - Very similar taste to chandler but slightly more intense in flavor. I get the same wild blackberry note when eating this variety. Good amount of berries on the plant.
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One Green World has Razz. I got that, Chandler, and Cabernet Splash from them. First two are good, the latter got dug up.
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I found myself with some time to kill at my old go-to nursery and they had several Legacy bushes for $20 (shout out Grand Lake Ace Garden Center for price, variety, and quality, I think technically in Piedmont but spiritually in Oakland). On the smaller side, but also it’s $20. And I have $10 in Ace Bucks.
So tempted to get one if they’re still there and healthy ish when my summer containers peter out and I can clear up some space.
Want to make sure they can
- Take the heat — can northern high bushes handle 100 degree days, on a concrete patio? We don’t get tons of 100 days, but definitely several
- Will they still pollinate with my emerald and jewels? I saw this which makes me think there’s enough overlap in the timing, but wanted to double check with folks with more experience than me
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Shouldn’t have any issues cross-pollinating but 100 degree days will definitely test any highbush. Rabbiteyes are more capable of hanging with that type of thing. If it’s in a container you could always move it or instead give it extra water and see if it makes it through. I’m sure it’ll get stressed though.
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