I just side dress with it and scratch it in a bit. If I’m about to mulch I put it down and mulch over.
For in ground plants I use unscientific two handfuls and one small handful for smaller plants or potted plants.
3 Likes
Excellent. I hate measuring things.
All this talk of soil additives for blueberries is interesting. I put in like 15 blueberry bushes years ago and did nothing for them. Just didn’t know much about it and didn’t care. Pink Lemonade did wonderful while all the blue varieties have really struggled with some doing better than others. Have several of the Pink Lemonade and all are like 6 foot looking great. I don’t think any of the blue varieties are even 3 foot yet and some of them always look like they are ready to die. I guess for those of you that don’t feel like adding anything to the soil, get you some Pink Lemonade.
Another oddity is my bushes are unprotected and after years I’ve never noticed the deer touching them. Which is wild because they destroy everything else.
2 Likes
do you still get good pollenation?
Its also easy for me. i have like ideal blueberry soil.
I have 5 blueberries, 2 wild type highbush in landscaping (i like their fruit), a bluecrop, a pinklemonade, and a florida rose
2 Likes
I do. Pretty sure most blueberries are self pollinating though.
1 Like
Ive heard the rabbit eyes need a 2nd rabbit eye
I have a small Pink Lemonade bush I got from Stark Bros and a Patriot I got from a big box store. Interesting to hear that Pink Lemonade may need less intervention. I’ll probably still add more bushes anyway but that’s a pretty cool observation. I need to make sure I have blueberries all season!
1 Like
That late frost that hit in late April (it was 32f that night in my location) is so strange with how it affected my trees. I had a mulberry and two fig trees that looked like the leaves were going to maybe shrivel up and die. They all completely rebounded. Lush green leaves now. My very cold hardy persimmon tree on the other hand (Chuchupaca) had all the leaves die off from that frost. Imagine that.
A tree that can handle NEGATIVE 16f. I wouldn’t heve ever guessed that outcome. My Almond tree which was completely leafed out when that late frost hit took no damage at all. It just laughed at the cold. Some things just don’t make sense. 
1 Like
Is anyone starting to get signs of Cedar Apple Rust (CAR)? Admittedly, I am not an expert and assume the first two images (Fireside M.7, Golden Russet G.890) are CAR, but is the third one (Liberty on M.7) CAR? The third one looks more like a brown spot than the bright orange/yellow shown in the first two.
The first ones look like CAR but the last one looks like a leaf spot disease.
.. I spotted my first lantern fly nymphs today, so far they are very few in number though. I hope that is a sign..
Re the persimmons and frost, all of mine that got damaged are coming back now, but one seems to only be budding from the base, not sure why it took it worse.
1 Like
Do you have jujubes too? It got zapped as well and hasn’t started putting out new growth yet. But it’s totally still alive.
My (So) Jujube got zapped real good by that frost. I noticed yesterday the first hints of buds starting to push again (though looks to be from nodes that hadn’t initially pushed).
1 Like
Mine appear to be totally fine. But damage could be revealed when we see if the fruit sets.
I thought my sweet cherries were fine after the freeze but nearly all of them stopped growing and are now starting to drop.
1 Like
My cutie pie sour cherry dropped about 95% of what it had (massive crop) and the handful that are left look a little weird right now. Hopefully the normalize but I’m pretty shocked that thing got hit so bad. I think it might have actually killed a branch or 2 (not that it matters it has a ton) but aside from my honeyberries, that was the one I expected to have the least problem with the frost.
1 Like
My new Gerardi still isn’t showing any signs of life above the rootstock. The few inches it had were killed in the freeze. Still holding out hope. My gratitude grape has been regrowing.
So my carmine Jewel got top heavy (and the wind from like 2 weeks ago) and internally broke in half or at least became messed up on the main branch of it. It flops all around, but the bark is not broken. I have it staked right now so it’s mostly upright. Do you think it will fix itself or am I going to end up having to cut it off where it bent really bad? It’s about 3 ft up from the base ( it’s about 5 or 6 ft tall in total) the top doesn’t look like it’s dying at all.
Anyone have that happen? Think the humidity come summer will cause some type of rot/disease problem?
1 Like
Tape a splint onto it till it thickens up some and it should be fine. I’ve taped up branches that were almost broken off and they recovered.
2 Likes
Looks to me like maybe my Patriot blueberry is responding well to some soil amendments. Probably not as bad as I made it seem to begin with. Lots of growth, but looks like the flowers may have gotten toasted during the frost despite covering. Or pollination is just bad. I might do better with another bush, I do want to try and propagate but heard bluebs are pretty tough.
2 Likes
I think air layering a new green shoot can be pretty reliable. It is trying to root small cuttings that are more of a challenge.
1 Like