I grow northern blueberries, if that has any impact here…
The pine bark fines can be hard to source in some places. I used to live in the western part of Ohio and had a bunch of options nearby, but now I just drive an hour into PA and pickup a half pallet or so each time. They’re partially composted/aged and I don’t sift them for size because the majority are small enough. I’ve had productive blueberries sit in pots for years in what was a popular mix on the old garden web/houzz forums…5 parts pine bark fines, 1 part peat, 1 part coarse perlite, and if I’m remembering correctly, 1 T gypsum per gallon. One plant has been in a 20 gallon fabric pot since 2013ish…I keep looking at it saying, this year I’ll repot it.
I’ve gone so far as to reach out to wholesalers of mulch products and ask for retail locations because so many smaller nurseries don’t have inventory on the web.
The Good Pine Fines here are sold at the local feed stores. The next best pine fines are sold at Menards… The only box store locally that i can go get it now is Lowes. I checked locally and some stores have 300+ bags and some stores have zero… so YMMV on which store has what.
I have a small wood chipper and make my own sometimes with pine nuggets if i get a bunch of ‘busted bags’ Just dump them in and out comes pine fines.
This guy has a similar way to make your own pine fines-
I just made straw mulch and leaf mulch with my bagger push mower that has a mulching blade… very good results… i havent tried running it over pine nuggets but i suspect it would do a similar job.
By feed store i mean mom and pop feed stores that sell animal feeds/straw and soils etc.
The Lowes/Walmart ‘Pine Mulch’ locally has alot of wood mulch in with the bark mulch… so to me lesser quality than the above which is pulverized pine bark.
Kambark soil conditioner is the one I’m using now, as well. They sell private label bags and that’s how I found a source close to me. The bag is totally different, but it’s the same product. I emailed their sales email and just asked for the retailer closest. I think they have pretty wide distribution.
Natures Choice seems to be a bigger outfit and has more products…but only at one of my local feed stores. Not sure where the bulk of their business is…
Potted the 3 Rabbiteye blueberries I got from isons a few days ago (Titan, Krewer, Vernon). they shipped them in this gel that seemed to keep them really moist and lively. I liked it a lot.
also the up-potted the potted ones I got last year, a Legacy from Tractor supply, and an Alapaha from Edible Landscaping
put them in a 50/50 mix of premier brand peat moss and Norfleet’s shredded pine mulch. I also added in 1/4 to 1/8th of a 25 pound bag of EP Minerals Optisorb food grade DE to help with water retention. I have not added the Pure AG ericoid mycorrhizal fungi yet. they are only in 7 gallon pots temporarily. I’ll move them up to 20-25 gallon grow bags in another month or so I think.
The garden center I got the pine mulch from told me they used to carry Norfleet’s pine fines too but Norfleet’s went out of business and they were working to find a new source of pine fines. figured I would just pull the trigger on the pine mulch they had and go with it.
You will be fine with that mix. But 100% peat moss would have been easier and just as effective.
In 2025 I grew Kee Crisp plants from small starts to big, like really big, flowering plants in 7 months. The key isn’t media but water and fertilizer. A dilute mix of ammonium sulfate applied every day or every other day is rocket fuel for blueberries.
100% peat moss and 50:50 peat moss and pine bark fines performed identically.
was listening to the orchard people podcast on blewbs and the penn extension says that people have excellent results with 1:1 sand:peat. they say silica sand or blasting sand. those seem awful fine to me. also heavy.
Listener Questions: Soil Amendments and pH
We got a whole bunch more questions. Next one is from Bond from Peterborough, Ontario. Bond says, I’m wondering what kind of sand I can use to amend my soil with to grow blueberries successfully and how much should I add. Okay, this is another really good question. So, there are different types of sand out there. There is play sand that is not the best, that is actually very fine and there isn’t a lot of variation in it, which these fine roots need. They do need to be able to work their way through the soil because they’re so fine so the play sand is not the best. This might be longer answer than you wanted, but then there’s also builders sand, which may be pulverized rock that might have a high pH to it. We’ve actually found that to be the case. So not that either. There is a coarser type of sand you can get that might be sold as sandblaster sand or silica sand that is relatively inert. And that seems to be the type of sand that is best for blueberries. You can mix in up to 50 percent sand if you want to. Some growers will use a mix of half peat, half silica sand as a growing media and it works very.
SOME Lowe’s have pine fines. None of my local ones do. I’ve only seen one soil conditioner brand that wasn’t explicitly gypsum locally between Lowe’s, Home Depot, and the local garden stories and that one was pretty nonspecific about the contents.
I’ve done ok with the usual 5:1:1 pine bark mulch, peat, perlite mix, but not great either.
Where do you buy ericoid mycorrhae? I can only seem to find one supplier and I don’t think I really want to pay $35 for it.
Others on here suggested sand, but I figured with the fact that I’m using grow bags instead of solid containers they will have plenty of aeration and the sand will just add unnecessary weight making them harder to move around. I don’t doubt that it works well, just that it might not be the ideal media for my situation.
the combination of ph 9 water and ph 4 peat moss should end up around 6 or so but I haven’t tested this specific mixture. When I add tap water to my avocado mix which is 30% peat moss it brings it down to around 7
only peat moss and perlite inside the rootball, maybe 5 gal or so, no ph adjustment. It would probably be happier with soil acidifier but it seems to be doing decent so I haven’t got around to it
