Blueberries

A couple of years ago my wife, Margaret, decided that since I enjoyed blueberries so much (and that they’re so good for you) we should grow them in our garden.  She brought home a couple of the traditional northern deciduous type plants along with three evergreen “Sunshine Blue” hybrids developed from southern varieties.  I have to admit to being skeptical about the whole project.  Many years prior to this we had attempted to grow blueberries with a huge 30-year-old plant we bought from a blueberry farm going out of business.  Among other things we learned why farmers usually replace their plants after 15 to 20 years of production!  Additionally, I didn’t believe that an evergreen hybrid like this could produce a decent crop of tasty berries and also function as a lovely ornamental plant all winter long.

For the first two seasons I mostly ignored the new berry plants out of my skepticism and further because it is recommended that you limit your harvests for the first one or two years on young plants.  Then early in the third summer Margaret told me I better check out the new berries and that I might want to take a container with me and pick some.  When I finally got around to sampling the crop, I found I needed to go back and get a second container to pick all the wonderfully sweet berries that were ready for harvest.

During the course of the summer I harvested at least 10 quarts of berries from those plants for wonderful pancakes, waffles and pies.  Only a handful came from the “normal” highbush plants while the shorter “Sunshine Blue” produced nearly all the crop.  Admittedly the former plants were tucked behind the latter in a shadier spot.  But the Sunshine Blue’s yield and taste quality were both great.  And with the many reports continuing to come out regarding the health aspects of eating blueberries I have become a proponent of the grow your own blueberry movement.

It seems with each passing year there is more information that links blueberry consumption with better health.  There is lots of evidence that eating blue fruit provides the body with many compounds that slow down several things commonly associated with the aging process:  antioxidants to keep cell types from premature changes associated with cancer and vascular diseases, resveratrol now thought to also inhibit some of those same processes, compounds suggested to help prevent some of the destructive mechanisms of the brain leading to Alzheimer’s disease and, of course, lots of vitamin C in the fresh berries.

Origins

The common blueberries found in most supermarkets are grown on Northern Highbush type plants.  These are commercially grown descendents of the lowbush varieties still found growing in the wild throughout much of Northeastern North America.  Many of the “wild” blueberries sold today are picked from these lowbush varieties in places like Maine, Quebec and Nova Scotia.  The largest commercial producers of berries are in Michigan with additional product coming from the Pacific Northwest. 

Southern varieties were developed from native southern lowbush type plants and crosses with northern plants.  Some varieties are better in certain climate zones than others.  For example, the southern varieties are not cold tolerant and will not survive the colder winters of the Northern North America.  Likewise some of the northern varities need a certain amount of cold and will not thrive in warmer regions of the world.  In moderate climates, such as the Pacific Northwest, both types of blueberries do well and more attention can be paid to taste and productivity than to survivability of a particular variety.

Since the size of the mature plants can range from less than a foot to more than 12’ attention should be paid to the planting space available.  For small gardens, consider a lowbush plant rather than one of the larger highbush varieties.  While we haven’t yet explored many other southern types, my own favorite is the Sunshine Blue.  It has a slightly tart but very flavorful taste and it produces very well for us in Seattle over the course of the entire summer.  If the weather cooperates you might even be harvesting into October. 

Requirements

Blueberries will produce the most fruit when grown in full sun.  Most will tolerate some shade but the production will usually decline in direct proportion the amount of shade the plant receives during the day.  Ideally your berry plant will get at least 7 - 8 hours of direct sun during midsummer.  These plants are not what we would call drought tolerant.  They do need plenty of water during the growing season.  For those plants that produce a harvest early in the summer, they will benefit from additional water during the late summer so they do not go dormant until the cold weather arrives in the early fall.  This enables them to store up more energy for use the following year.  You can tell when they are going dormant by their leaf color.  As the leaves begin to shut down they start to change to varying shades of red and orange.  Once this starts to happen it is usually too late to stop so keep those plants watered from harvest time until frost-time (if you are in a frost forming region).

Additionally, blueberries require a soil that is quite acidic.  For those of us in the rainy Northwest this is often our norm, but in other areas you may have to amend your soil to achieve a good harvest.  Several methods can help to lower your soil pH.  The goal is soil of a pH of 5 or less.  Adding peat moss, fly ash, elemental sulphur and using acid type fertilizers all will help. 

Pruning is relatively simple and should be carried out early in the spring.  Remove dead and broken branches.  Remove no more than 20 to 25% of the branches, taking care to cut out the oldest, largest canes.  Leave the newest canes to produce the fruit for the next several years. 

Harvest the berries when they are ripe to taste.  Which means you’ll have to do a bit of taste testing when the end of spring starts to roll around.  Some varieties have different looks at ripening than others so it is important to be familiar with what your varieties look like when they are ripe.  One of the varieties I grow is not ripe until all signs of green are gone from the bottom of the berry.  The other varieties I have do not have this green spot on the bottom of the fruit so that color method doesn’t work for them. 

Relatively few problems plague blueberry farming.  One that many of us urban farmers seem to have is competition form birds.  In my own case, I believe there are two factors working in my favor:  1.) The variety I primarily grow (Sunshine Blue) is slightly on the tart side and think this helps make those particular fruits somewhat less desirable to the birds and 2.) It appears we several neighboring cats that seem to lurk beneath the berry bushes acting as guards over our crop.  There is bird netting that can be used but is a bit troublesome to move each time you have to get to the plants.  However, if that is the only alternative it is better than giving much of your harvest to the winged predators.

Varieties

Northern Highbush

Southern Lowbush Types: Sunshine Blue & Bountiful Blue

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