Growing Blueberries in the Home Garden

With all the edible choices of plants to add to your garden blueberries are at the top of most lists.  They taste good, come back every year, and highly nutritious, and aren't hard to grow if you do the right things for them. What do you need to do to grow a bumper crop of blueberries every year? Here are things you might find useful for growing blueberries in your home garden!

The soil is the number one thing to work on before planting.  Use acidic fertilizers to help improve the soil acidity and amend with compost and peat moss.  Coffee grounds make a good amendment to add but only adjust the pH a little bit at a time so additional fertilizers maybe necessary.  By adjusting the pH you are setting the soil to a pH that allows the plant to achieve the ideal transfer of nutrients from the soil. Compost can help with that too.  Cover the ground around your blueberries with mulches like pine straw or pine bark. 2-4 inches of mulch is ideal and will keep the soil moist and cool to help those roots do their work.

After planting prune away the first year's blooms (I didn't do that, just couldn't bring myself to remove those potential berries!) to encourage the plant to grow roots and branches. After the second year prune away dead branches and old branches that are 3-4 years old.  

Not only are blueberries good to eat but the plants have beautiful fall color and are great to use as edible landscape plantings!

Do you grow blueberries in your garden?