Starting Blueberry patch

TwinWillows · Apr 12, 2006

Thanks for the comment! That old plow surprised me cutting & turning as well as it did.

My soil is pretty heavy & the sod in this area thick. I found that about 2200 rpm, low range, turtle & 4WD w/the loader & bucket on let me cut through most of it at max plow depth. W/that setting I did not stall much & either backing of the pedal or slightly raising the plow freed things up. Probaly over cautious but I didn't go higher on the RPM's as the engine is not yet over 60 hrs & is breaking in.

scott_vt · Apr 13, 2006

Twin Willows,
Very nice so far and very informative, thankyou for the pics and info. I assume you used your disk after the plowing then used the sulphur and sawdust and disked that in?

I put in a few last year and am curious what happens this year. Will be following your thread.

scotty

Id also like to add that I know absolutely nothing about blueberries other than I like eating them /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

TwinWillows · Apr 13, 2006

Scott: Yes, I used the disc to till in the sulfur. The sawdust is laid down after planting to help hold the moisture in the ground & is not tilled in.

It's my plan to keep this updated w/more info as we go. I agree that they sure do taste good!

forgeblast · Apr 13, 2006

I have tested my soil every year, just to make sure i am in the right ph zone. we get so much acid rain, that we dont need to worry about adding that to the soil.
Last year i stopped all the flowers, i ll do it this year too. I hope that they shoot up this year, they are still kind of small.

SPIKER · Apr 13, 2006

nice post, read it back when, and was wondering how you stopped the flowering? (sneake up behind em and yeal BOO really loud /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif ) ?

I would be interested in find ing out more about blueberries, we have a lot of blackberries and rasberries & a good bit of eldiberries too, all mostly wild ones. but some are cultivated I guess as I found a blackberrie potting / plant lable this past week when I was doing some tilling myslef. guess prior owners may have planted many of them ? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif I do keep a good bit of these trimmed for production but have know idea what type of soil I ahve, most of the land is setup as a tree farm nursery.

mark m

flusher · Apr 13, 2006

Mighty impressive project. Good luck.

I don't know squat about berry bushes, so I decided to plant some and learn by doing (and making mistakes). See attachment for my setup.

The berry patch is in the foreground along the driveway. Planted 9 bare-root bushes last week (2 blueberry, 3 red raspberry, 2 blackberry and 2 bababerry, which is a drought tolerant red raspberry).

Used my B7510HST and 4-ft box blade to scrape the area and then rototilled and worked in a compost/cattle manure mix. Watered the blueberry area with azalea feed since I had a bunch of that stuff lying around and azaleas are acid lovers too. My azalea bush near the front porch is blooming like crazy.

Built the standard 42"-high T-trellis per lotsa advice on the Web. Will string the wires when the canes get tall enough.

The tan things are grow tubes, called "Clipper Tubes" ($1.10 each from Orchard Valley Supply). They are scienterrifically designed to filter the sunlight to make the plants happy and grow fast. The grape growers in the Napa Valley to the West of me use these for their new vines.

You can see the two grape trellises in the background. Planted 12 bare-root vines about a month ago (9 Concord, 3 Catawba). Used the box blade to scrape the turf and then dug 2-ft deep holes and filled them with compost/manure mix and some native soil. Hope all the rain here in the North Valley hasn't caused root rot. Oh well, it's easy to plant new vines if that happens.

The grape trellises are called vertical shoot positioning (VSP) trellises. Used a lot in the Napa Valley. They're overkill for my little orchard, but it was fun building them and stringing the wires.

The shed in the background was one of last year's projects. It's a salt box design, 10'x12', and holds all the gardening stuff. Used the B7510 a lot on that job hauling materials and sections of the wall frames from the garage to the jobsite.