About a year ago I started turning this quarter acre back yard into an edible landscape. Blueberry bushes were one of my must haves. And if you’ve ever been intimidated about growing blueberries because you heard that they need super acidic soil, don’t be. Because in this video I will show you how to grow blueberries easily and without the need for using elemental sulfur, or peat moss and you won’t even have to worry about PH.
In this video we will be using composted woodchips, leaf mold, and moldy fruit.
Learn to make your own composted wood chips in this video below:
• 3 Free Ways to Make Yo...
Hi, I’m Christina with Forever Food Forest. A channel where I explore ways of growing food without the use of herbicides, pesticides or commercial fertilizers. And instead I rely on permaculture gardening and natural farming techniques to grow food that’s good for the garden and good for the planet.
In this video I’m going to show you how to prepare your soil for growing blueberries naturally with things you might already have laying around the garden. So, let's get started.
The first step for successfully growing blueberries is selecting the right variety. One’s that have been specifically bred for your region and climate will grow the easiest. I'm growing Farthing and Emerald which a Southern High bush varieties especially bred to withstand our Florida heat!
The second step for successfully growing lots of blueberries is that you’re gonna need two or more plants that flower at the same time. So unless they are a self-fertile variety, blueberries need a mate in order to get fertilized and to set fruit.
So now that I have my varieties selected, let’s find them a new home.
I ended up selecting two sites for planting my blueberries. One in the front yard. One in the back. You will see me cut between those two throughout the video. My biggest challenge was finding a spot that gets enough sun. Blueberries will tolerate part shade, but in order to get lots and lots of fruit, they need lots and lots of sun.
I dug out all of our native soil, which in Florida, our native soil is sandy. It dries out really fast and that is not an ideal environment for blueberries. Blueberries like soil that retains moisture and drains fast. After I dug the hole, I ended up filling it with lots and lots of organic matter to help retain moisture.
I love finding ways for reusing yard waste in my garden. Leaves, grass clippings, wood chips, old fruit - it’s always fun finding ways of recycling those things back into the soil and then watching my garden thrive.
So right here I have a pile of composted wood chips. If you wanna know how to make your own composted wood chips, I put a link to that video in the description.
Once the hole is dug, I fill it with my composted wood chips about half way.
To help us acidify the soil, we are going to toss some acidic fruits in here. And you can just use kitchen scraps if you don’t have a citrus tree.
I'm also adding leaf mold to the mix to help with moisture retention, drainage and to introduce lots of beneficial microorganisms.
And we’re just gonna dump that in here. There ya go. Just gonna dump it on top. That’s beautiful. Wow.
A word about acidity. If you notice that your blueberry leaves are turning yellow, It could be an iron deficiency. And not all iron is created equally. For example: clay soils are full of iron oxide but that type of iron is not accessible to blueberries. In order to be accessible it needs to be broken down into a form they can absorb.
So one common misconception about blueberries is that they require acidic soil. That is not true. As someone pointed out in the comments, blueberries tolerate acidic soil better than other plants and they need the acidity to help break down the iron and make it available for them. Now if you can’t get that pH low enough, there’s a way around it by growing companion plants. Science has found that growing grasses next to blueberries helps make iron available to blueberries and also makes them taste better.