Making a plan

Hello everyone,
I want to make a plan for yearly care for my fruits. I wanted to see what everyone does and when they do it each year. I’m in Maryland.

I have 2 apple trees
A few rows of strawberries (June bearing- early season- we were done by the beginning of June)
about 7 blueberry plants
and going to some grape vines soon to go over top of my chicken run area.

1 Like

Here’s a prior thread that will give you some info: Low-Impact Spray Schedule (2019 Edition)

1 Like

And here is Alan’s recommendations for syjthetics: Spray Schedule- Synthetic Materials

1 Like

Thanks! Any recommendations for blueberries or strawberries?

Hello,
If the Blueberry plants are going in the ground,mix a lot of Peat moss in the soil and maybe some Pine bark mulch too.Use rainwater when possible for irrigation.bb

What are the varieties of your apples?

Thanks. I was going to ask about making the soil more acidic. I’m using chicken poo/compost in the beds but its not doing much so far. They are in the ground already.

I have a honeycrisp and a red delicious.

I don’t grow RD but I have a HC for 11 years now. Mine is on an unknown rootstock and take 6 years to fruit. Then, it has gone biennial. You need to thin like 90% off to prevent biennialing. There are a few people who said their HC fruit every year. I don’t remember what rootstocks are theirs.

I think HC does better in colder zones. It has a genetic disorder of yellowing leaves so don’t panic when you see that. It is not a beginner’s apple but not too hard. To be, the biggest pain of HC is a biennialing tendency.

Fighting to keep your blueberries acidic without some kind of solid divider is hard. Add sulfur, use water cut with battery (sulfuric) acid, use acid plant fertilizer, etc.

what do you mean by divider? Is using sulfur, etc okay to put on now or should i wait until spring? Thanks for the reply!

Are your strawberries june-bearing or day-neutral?

June bearing.

I think another question I have too is about timing of fertilizing vs when you mow them back/trim. I’ve seen stuff that says to mow them back in fall and some say to do it when fertilizing when the fruit is done (which for me was about a month ago or a little more.

For June-bearing, you want to mow them back and fertilize after fruiting

Perfect. THanks. I saw Jobe’s granular berry fertilizer today but didn’t buy it. Wanted to stay organic

What have you had luck with?

I use Espoma granular usually, but no real concern for organic

Because you can’t till into a strawberry bed, sometimes soluble ferts are necessary

As in something solid in the ground, otherwise worms & water diffusion will even out PH kind of quickly. I’ve seen a number of people dig a pit and line it with concrete blocks or something before filling back in with some acidic medium.

Solid sulfur acts fairly slowly. Watering while cut with sulfuric acid is faster. Using rainwater is also good, since municipal water supplies are generally neutral or basic.

1 Like