Growing Blueberries from Planting to Harvest

, written by Benedict Vanheems gb flag

Ripe blueberries

Blueberries are one of nature’s superfoods, crammed with essential nutrients like vitamins K and C, minerals including manganese and health-boosting polyphenols. They’ve even been proven to help with the old grey matter! If you want to include this fabulous fruit in your garden, there’s no time like the present to get planting. So here, then, is our Planting to Harvest guide to blueberries…

Ideal Blueberry Growing Conditions

You’ll get the most from your blueberries if you can provide a sheltered site, free from buffeting winds, in full sunshine to help those beautiful, dusky berries mature. The bushes are hardy, but avoid frost-prone areas of the garden, which can hamper the springtime flowers.

Most varieties are self-fertile, so in theory you can grow one on its own. In reality, you will get far better pollination – and more fruits – if plants can cross-pollinate. For this reason, it pays to grow at least two different varieties together.

“Frosty
Blueberries are very hardy, but protect blossom from frost

Planting Blueberries

You’ll usually find blueberries sold in ready-to-plant pots. You can plant at any time of year but autumn is best or, if winters are exceptionally cold where you garden, wait until spring.

The soil that blueberries grow in is really important. They’re heathland plants, so there’s little point planting them in anything other than acidic soil. It’s literally fruitless! And they need it really acidic, ideally with a pH of between 4.0 and 5.5. You’ll know your soil is suitable if you can grow other acid-lovers like rhododendrons, azaleas or camellias. Or you can find out your soil’s exact pH using a simple pH test kit.

“Blueberry
If your soil isn't acidic, grow blueberries in raised beds or containers filled with ericaceous potting mix

If your soil is neutral or alkaline, all is not lost – you can amend your soil by adding sulfur chips or an organic soil acidifier several months ahead of planting to slowly bring down soil pH. Or for an immediate fix, plant your blueberries into a dedicated raised bed, filled with acidic, or ericaceous potting mix.

Space plants about five feet (1.5m) apart for best yields; don’t be tempted to space them less than three feet (90cm) apart. Alternatively, plant into large containers of ericaceous potting mix, which will be a lot cheaper than filling an entire raised bed, but make sure never to let them dry out.

Choose a frost-proof pot at least a foot (30cm) wide, with drainage holes in the bottom. Start filling with your ericaceous potting mix then remove the blueberry from its pot. Place it on the potting mix then fill in around the sides with more. The top of the potting mix should end up level with the top of the rootball. Water it thoroughly, topping up the potting mix if necessary as it settles. Optionally, finish with a decorative mulch of pine needles or bark chippings.

“Watering
Water blueberries with rainwater, and never allow them to dry out

Growing Blueberries

Keep the soil or potting mix moist, watering whenever it gets dry. Mains water will gradually raise the pH levels, so use collected rainwater instead to keep the soil acidic.

Container plants will need regular feeding using a liquid fertilizer specially formulated for acid-loving plants. Plants in the ground simply need mulches topped up occasionally using an acidic organic material such as leafmold, bark chippings, pine needles or composted sawdust. Do not use manure, which is both too rich and too alkaline for blueberries.

Transplant container blueberries into larger pots as soon as the roots fill the container, and protect flowers from any late frosts using row cover fabric.

“Pruned
Blueberries require minimal pruning

Pruning Blueberries

One of the great attractions of blueberries to first-time fruit growers is that they require very little pruning. Any pruning that is necessary is done towards the end of winter. Begin by cutting out any dead stems and stem tips, then thin any overcrowded branches and any growing too close to the ground. To keep established plants productive cut out about a quarter of the oldest branches every year. And that’s it!

“Harvesting
Harvest blueberries once they've fully colored up, with no trace of pink near the stem

Harvesting Blueberries

To stop birds guzzling the berries before you do, consider setting up a fruit cage, or at least covering plants with netting to keep them off.

The berries are ready when they’ve taken on their distinctive blue color all over and pull away easily from their stalks. Leave them on the plant for a few days after they’ve turned completely blue for the best flavor. Berries are unlikely to ripen all at once, so go over plants several times so you don’t miss any.

Fresh is best, but if you enjoy a bumper crop – lucky you! – you can freeze the excess or use your blueberries in any number of lip-smackingly delicious preserves.

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Comments

 
"can you use rhododendron fertilizer on blue berries "
Donna on Thursday 4 February 2021
"Yes, that should work fine as it will usually be suitable for most acid-loving plants, including blueberries. But perhaps just double-check the instructions of the particular product you're looking at, just to be sure."
Ben Vanheems on Thursday 4 February 2021
"Thank you for the very informative and interesting article."
Jean on Tuesday 6 July 2021
"What to do with potted blueberries for over winter"
Melissa on Monday 8 November 2021
"Hi Melissa. If your winters aren't severe, you can just leave the blueberries outside exactly as they are. They don't need any special treatment. However, if you have very cold winters then move your pots close to the house or under some form or protection out of cold winds. You might also want to consider wrapping the pot itself up in bubblewrap or burlap etc. Continue to keep the potting mix moist, but ease off the watering as they certainly won't want to be wet. You probably won't have to water much at all in the cold."
Ben Vanheems on Tuesday 9 November 2021
"How can I get blueberries seeds here in Kenya?"
Githambo on Sunday 27 March 2022
"I am not sure Githambo, sorry. Blueberries are best started from young plants - it will save a lot of time versus growing them from seed."
Ben Vanheems on Monday 28 March 2022
"Hello, I'm sure I saw a video on your website that showed how to propagate blueberries, but I can't seem to find it. Could you please point me in the right direction? Many thanks, Natalie"
Natalie on Monday 14 November 2022
"Hi Natalie. If you type in 'Berry healthy fruit for free' into the search bar at the top, it will take you to our article and video on this. :-)"
Ben Vanheems on Tuesday 15 November 2022
"Ben, love the videos. I live in central Tennessee and have 100 organic blueberry bushes on a farm I bought 5 years ago. They are all of the “Climax” variety. I have two questions: first, I’m having a bad problem with mummy berry. I’ve lost most of the fruit for the last 3 years. What is an effective organic solution? Second, the bushes hadn’t been trimmed for several years before I bought my farm and the bushes are huge. I cut them back to 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide in the winter and by June they are 8-9 feet tall and grown into a blueberry jungle I can hardly move around in. I’m thinking about cutting them down to 3 feet tall this winter to ‘reset’ the plants to be manageable size. Is this wise?"
Dan on Monday 16 January 2023
"Hi Dan. Common wisdom is that you should not prune out more than about a third of total growth at once. However, other blueberry growers have had good success cutting overgrown bushes back much harder than this, resulting in fresh, vigorous new growth. I think cutting back to 2-3 feet in the winter would certainly be worth a try. I have no experience of mummy berry personally, but there are some excellent articles online about the disease. Search 'mummy berry' and read the article by the APS (American Pathology Society). I would link to it here, but am unable to do so."
Ben Vanheems on Tuesday 31 January 2023
"I have my blueberries in pots. They were planted in tomato soil and I was initially feeding with blueberry-specific fertiliser until it ran out. It was very healthy until after it fruited. The leaves started turning brown. The leaves started turning brown from the tips. It started growing new branches and leaves, but the new leaves are yellow with just green at the veins, and the odd leaf is turning brown. I have been giving it tomato fertiliser. Any thoughts?"
Natalie on Monday 13 March 2023
"Hi Natalie. It sounds like your plant has an iron deficiency, which is caused by a soil/growing medium that is too alkaline for the plant growing in it. Iron helps the plant produce chlorophyll, and without the iron it struggles to do so, causing the yellowed leaves. I suspect the soil the blueberry is in just isn't acidic enough, particularly as the blueberry fertiliser has now run out. I would remove it from the pot, tease away some of the soil from the roots, then repot into acidic soil (ericaceous compost/soil). And resume feeding with a feed for acid-loving plants till the plants recover and root into the new acidic growing medium."
Ben Vanheems on Tuesday 14 March 2023
"It looks like my blueberry plant might be suffering from frost injury as new leaves that were starting to form this spring in the UK have started to wither and go brittle. No new leaves are forming at the moment. Should I leave my plant a few weeks and see what happens or is there something I can do now in order to save the plant? This plant is in a container. Thanks"
Louise on Monday 24 April 2023
"Hi Louise. Blueberries should be frost hardy, so I'm not sure what you're looking at is frost injury (though the flowers can get clobbered by a very hardy frost). But either way, I would make sure that the plant is getting enough water (and isn't sitting in it either - so well-drained). And I would wait a few weeks to see how things progress. "
Ben Vanheems on Tuesday 25 April 2023
"Hello, I bought my two blueberry plants as seedlings ~15cm tall and planted them into pots in spring. They fruited in summer 2 years later, although the berries were more sparse than pictures I've seen of fruiting blueberries. I wasn't aware at that time that I should have taken flowers off. I intend to prune and repot at the end of winter (2.5 years). Would you recommend removing the 3-year flowers in the coming summer (it's winter here just now), or is it a bit late for this? They are two different varieties - one has many long stems with little branching and 3-6cm between nodes. The other is more bush-shaped, still with all of its bright green leaves, nodes less than 1cm apart in top 1/4."
Natalie on Friday 23 June 2023
"Hi Natalie. I think the pruning and repotting will definitely help your blueberries along. I wouldn't bother removing the flowers - just let them do their thing and hopefully you'll get a progressively bigger crop each summer, as the plants grow."
Ben Vanheems on Friday 30 June 2023

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