Blueberries in big pots

Celtic Eagle · « **on:** August 16, 2007, 12:39 »

Anybody know owt bout Blueberries an growin 'em. I know the likes acid soil and I aint got that. So any ideas how big a pot I needs fer each bush?

Ta

muntjac · « **Reply #1 on:** August 16, 2007, 15:14 »

you dont ned acid soil you can make it acid yourself

text taken from garden stew..
Some ornamental plants and fruit plants like blueberries require an acidic soil. To make your soil more acidic (decrease its pH value) you can use either aluminium sulphate or sulphur. Aluminium sulphate is the quickest acting as it will increase the acidity as soon as it disolves into the soil. The downsides are though that its effects can be short term and it is possible to over-apply it.the more recommended but slower way to increase your soil pH is to use sulphur. Sulphur converts to sulphuric acid with the help of bacteria in the soil but this takes time depending on factors like the presence of bacteria, texture of the soil and moisture levels. This could take months if conditions are not ideal.

Trillium · « **Reply #2 on:** August 16, 2007, 15:19 »

I'm not familiar with UK varieties of blueberries so you'd want to ask your garden centre about pot sizes. Just don't be too stingy with pots as they'll dry out too fast. Blueberries need a fair bit of moisture to produce well. Lots of peat or coir will help, so will old manure and a mulch. To acidify the soil, I buy simple yellow sulphur powder by the pound from a garden centre and add some several times a year. Also available are acidifying water mixes by the Miracle Gro people. Mulching with evergreen needles also helps. Repeat mulch, sulphur and manure yearly to keep up production.

brucesgirl · « **Reply #3 on:** August 16, 2007, 15:59 »

We have blueberries in pots. They are in 18" pots at the moment. We plant them in ericaceous compost and we had literally 100's of blueberries this year. The stems go red in the autumn so they look good then, even though they are not fruiting.
They are self-pollinating but always do better if you have more than one variety within a few feet of each other.
Apart from the compost and never watering with tap water, we live in a very hard water area, we do absolutely nothing to them except eat the berries!

Noah'strolly · « **Reply #4 on:** August 16, 2007, 22:42 »

I got one called top hat which is supposed to be good in pots but to be honest my other three have done better. I got them from the garden centre as a set labeled July, August and September after their fruiting times. They are all in those big plastic pots they sell everywhere and have been fruiting well - although about 3 weeks ahead of schedule (September has ripe fruit already).

Celtic Eagle · « **Reply #5 on:** August 17, 2007, 12:38 »

Ta folks

I might try both pots and ground

I'll let yer know what 'appens

Sarah C · « **Reply #6 on:** August 17, 2007, 20:05 »

Think we have the same ones as Noah'strolly, and ours also did really well and have fruited ahead of the month they say. Think it's one thing that actually liked the wet summer!
We dug a pit about 2m x 1 m and 60cm deep and filled with mix of allotment soil and ericacious compost. We've got 4 in there and they've all grown loads.

bigsprouts · « **Reply #7 on:** August 20, 2007, 17:52 »

hi all i got them blue plastic barrels we use as water butts and cut them in half drilled holes in the bottom then sunk them into the ground and put 2 inches of 20mm stone in the bottom then filled with erricacious compost then put 2inches of bark chippings round the plant to keep weeds out and moisture in the jobs a good'un

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Blueberries in big pots

Trillium