Growing blueberry plants

johngalway

Hi folks,

Thought I'd break this off from the Lidl fruit thread as it seems to have gotten quiet.

I bought six blueberry plants from Lidl on Thursday. The variety's are:

Blue Gold
Bluecrop
Nortland
Pioneer
Heerma
Goldtraube

I also bought two 60 litre bags of ericaceous compost.

At the moment the plants are in the small pits they came in. I do have some buckets to plant them into until they grow out of those as well. I'm unsure whether I should do this immediately, or wait for the leaves to fall off?

I plan to drill some holes in the bottom of the buckets, throw in some round stones in the bottom for drainage then fill the rest of the buckets with composts and the plants themselves.

Having done a small bit of searching on the issue I have heard tomato feed is good for these plants. What I haven't found out is how often they need to be fed and in what amount?

Think that's it for the moment, any help and guidance is much appreciated as this is pretty much my first time dabbling in gardening

Thanks for reading,

ATB,

John

bmaxi

I've been growing blueberries for a few years now and in my experience, unless your soil is alkaline, they do much better in open ground as they need a lot of water, particularly during the growing season. I don't know what type of buckets you are using but I would caution against any type of metal container as soil temperatures can get extremely hot in them.
I have never used anything other than a few handfuls of Growmore on mine and I get bumper crops but I can see the benefit of tomato feed while they are in containers and coming into flower, once a week should be enough, they will be going dormant soon so shouldn't need any feed until spring.

johngalway

Hi bmaxi,

In that case I'll have to go looking for a suitable site for them, I'll have to test the soil PH first though. The buckets are from a local bakery, cost half nothing and are plastic. What's Growmore?

Thought of two more questions. Little bamboo stakes came with them, so I presume they need attaching to those, what's the best tether to use so I don't damage them? Also, how do they deal with frost, being young plants, I know they grow in the USA and Canada as such so I'm guessing not much of a problem there.

Thanks for the reply

sponge_bob

got the last plant in my local lidl yesterday, and i was wondering the same thing.
it is currently residing in my greenhouse,
would it be better in a pot outside in a sheltered corner until it gets established and can then be planted into the ground?
or will i winter it in the greenhouse?

got two dwarf rodadendrums aswell i have them in the green house also, what should i do with them?

bmaxi

All the plants mentioned are best outdoors. Rhododendrons would like much the same conditions as blueberries, free draining acid soil with plenty of compost or leaf mould, waterlogging is much more likely to kill the plants than frost.
I don't know why the blueberries have support canes as any I've grown have a bushy habit, I can only assume it's for cosmetic reasons.