Blueberry

pepperpixie

Hi, just had a blueberry bush that i ordered online delivered!! It's meant to be self fertile so i only got one it's the North Sky variety, but after a quick google, it seems some don't believe that a blueberry bush can be self fertile, should i bite the bullet and get another variety somewhere and plant it close by??

redser7

Well some are self-fertile but people would call tehm semi-self-fertile. They do much better if you have two plants (or more) of a different type. So if you have only one self-fertile plant you will get fruit, but if you have a second or more different plants you will get much a better crop. Lidl are doing blueberry plants right now (5.99 I think). Run out and grab one or more if you can. They are also stocking ericaceous compost. You 'have' to use this as they will not live in normal compost. They are also doing rhododendron feed (for acid loving plants) and this will be perfect for blueberries. 3.99 for 2.5 kg I think. This is the right time of year to feed them so grab some of that too. Another important thing for blueberries, you should only water them with rain water. So find some way of collecting it, even just buckets left out in the rain. Bottle it and save it for dry sunner periods (yeah right). Tap water is too alkaline and they don't like that.

pepperpixie

thanks Redser will pop into Lidl shortly, hopefully they still have some bushes left, i had seen them coming up on their offers but already had my "self-fertile" one ordered!!! You're an absolute mine of information, how long have you been gardening for?? You mainly into fruit and veg or flowers also??

redser7

Ah stop. I only know what I know, there's plenty of gaps believe me. Got interested about 3 years ago with a bucket of compost and a packet of carrot seeds. Caught the bug. Got into sowing flower seeds last year then got offered an allotment last summer. So it's all fruit and veg now. Don't read fiction anymore, just gardening books and sites Never thought I was the type but love it.

pepperpixie

i only started last year with a few small bits, and was sooooo impressed with my courgettes that i just had to go further with it this year. Unfortunately our garden had many many mature trees and shrubs all out of control, so due do lack of funding we just cut them down so have massive root systems everywhere, no way i can plant directly in the ground, so i have a few growrings out on one side, and in the last couple of weeks got my new baby (my polytunnel) so hoping for great things this year. Had one of the cheapy green houses last year (ya know the plastic self assembly jobs) put my tomatoes and peppers out in it, had it against a wall, put cavity blocks on the bottom rails, and pushed a picnic bench in front of it, it still blew away along with my tomatoes and peppers, and ripped to shreds, so i got great pleasure out of dismantling the frame a few weeks ago!!!!

redser7

Had the same thing, took a lot of weight to keep it down. I kept the frame and wire shelves and use them as staging in the tunnel now, very handy and good recycling
Got first flowers on strawberries this week in the tunnel. Can't wait to see what it can do in the summer for the tomatoes!

pepperpixie

:eek: oh now i am soooooo jealous, i haven't even got my strawberry runners planted yet ha ha........hope i'm not gonna be too late, oh well it'll be a learning curve. Have started off more seed also, was so excited when my tunnel first came i landed all my seedlngs out don't think they appreciated it, they don't look overly happy about it.

redser7

Make sure you pick this up at some stage. It's really brilliant. I just follow it step by step and things are moving along nicely. Gives a run down of what to do in the year month by month, but also in the back it breaks it down by the plant. And great glossy photos.
She's based in Ireland so the info is fairly relevent to most of the country.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_9?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+polytunnel+book+joyce+russell&sprefix=The+polyt%2Caps%2C172

Technophobe

pepperpixie wrote: »

:eek: oh now i am soooooo jealous, i haven't even got my strawberry runners planted yet ha ha........hope i'm not gonna be too late, oh well it'll be a learning curve. Have started off more seed also, was so excited when my tunnel first came i landed all my seedlngs out don't think they appreciated it, they don't look overly happy about it.

Hey Pepperpixie,

Ideally they could have done with a bit of "hardening off" (assuming you moved them from the warmth of a house/conservatory) before a full on move but with the mild weather we are getting, might be ok in the tunnel anyways..

Mr.Applepie

redser7 wrote: »

Had the same thing, took a lot of weight to keep it down. I kept the frame and wire shelves and use them as staging in the tunnel now, very handy and good recycling
Got first flowers on strawberries this week in the tunnel. Can't wait to see what it can do in the summer for the tomatoes!

I had 4 "hundreds of millions" tomato plants in my polytunnell last year - they grew 8 foot before i took out the growing tip and I had a huge amount of lovely sweet tomatoes. Most of them didn't make it to the kitchen as I just ate them on the spot.

I just put some of my strawberries in there - hopefully they'll start cropping by may

Micheal GIY

Just to add that there is now a second book published here in Ireland on polytunnel growing, this time by Klaus Laitenberger. Both Klaus and Joyces books are available on the GIY website. Most of us probably don't make the most out of our tunnels, but both of these books are packed with advice on how to get crops from teh tunnel for 10 months of the year!