Need advice about growing blueberries in Utah

Goodness, I've never heard of a plant like that--but I must need one!!!!!!!!!

I'm a tomatoaholic first and foremost. I have at least 75 different varieties. I know, I'm nuts.

Yeah, you really have to be kinda NUTS to try to grow blueberries in Utah! ;+)

I am in the midwest, and it's hard enough here! There is a guy who has been growing them successfully here, though----QUITE successfully---and what he did, for one thing, is to plant them only TWO INCHES deep. He mixed his timber soil, which averages between 6 and 6.5, with sphagnum peat, 50/50, and he uses both elemental sulphur, which changes soil pH slowly, and Ammonium Sulfate, which dissolves and changes pH quickly.

He gives them plenty of water, and I don't think it matters to him what the pH of the water is.

Any time the leaves on his plants start to look yellow, he gives them a nice dose of ammonium sulfate.

His are doing fine.

Mine are doing kinda mediocre, but I planted mine more deeply than he did, and I used straight sphagnum peat. Once the plants go dormant this fall, I may raise them in the ground and remix the planting medium.

From one nut to another, you have my admiration!

CJ

CJ - I'm not sure I understand what you mean about only planting them 2 inches deep.
I planted my bareroot plants as the level it appeared that the soil line was around the roots. Did you plant them deeper than that?

Hi, Linda.

I will have to ask the person I am talking about what HE means by planting "2 inches deep." Good question! Thanks!

And how does he protect the roots from freezing, if they are so close to the surface?

I did email him and this is his answer:

Maybe I should have said to cover the roots with no more than 2 inches of soil. All of my initial plants were barwe root. Most of my recent plantings are pot grown. If the soil is easy to remove from the roots, I do that and soak the roots overnight in a bucket of water.
Otherwise I plant the Root ball about an inch higher than my soil line and slope the soil up to the original soil level. Again, I use 1-2 inches of mulch depending on rain tendency.

With regard to roots freezing, high bush blueberries are VERY hardy, can withstand temps to 20 below, fahrenheit. Roots could easily be mulched to protect them from freezing AND thawing, which is what really kills plants.

Thanks, CJ. I mulched my blueberries very well last winter. It was their first winter and being in raised beds scared me. We put bags of leaves around the outside of the beds and on top of the soil once it had frozen some. Then I added corn stalks and branches of an apple tree we cut down to help protect them from the wind and deer. They all made it--even the Chandlers that are supposed to be a zone 5.

We did get down to -20 degrees last winter for several days. It's the wind chill that makes it even worse.

This year I was hoping to get my son to put dirt up around the beds to make them more like sunken beds than raised beds to protect them from the cold winter. So far he hasn't done it. I hate to pester him too much because I know what a hard job it would be.

I planted my blueberries like your friend told you to.

I have messaged him again to give more detail about "2 inches deep." Will report back what he says.

OK, Linda. He wrote back. What he said was that with bare root blueberries, he spreads the roots out enough that they lie flat enough in the shallow hole that he can cover them with just 2 inches of soil/sphagnum peat mixture. He puts one or two inches of mulch over that to keep weeds away.

Here is exactly what he replied:

"Maybe I should have said to cover the roots with no more than 2 inches of soil. All of my initial plants were barwe root. Most of my recent plantings are pot grown. If the soil is easy to remove from the roots, I do that and soak the roots overnight in a bucket of water.
Otherwise I plant the Root ball about an inch higher than my soil line and slope the soil up to the original soil level. Again, I use 1-2 inches of mulch depending on rain tendency."

I hope that is clear.

He is doing very well indeed at growing blueberries in a 6 to 6.5 to even 7.0 soil. My bushes are planted a good deal too deep compared to his. I may change that after they go dormant in late fall/early winter.

CJ

Thanks CJ. I had heard that they shouldn't be planted too deeply, but that can mean something different to everyone. Yes, you can see the top of the branches so I didn't plant them too deeply. LOL !!!!! Just kidding. You know that, don't you?

This thread is old, but I found it since I just planted 2 blueberry bushes about a week ago and today bought 2 more. I live in northeast Oregon, with alkaline soil and lime in the water. The lady at my local nursery advised me to dig a hole 18 inches deep x18 inches wide, mix the soil with an equal volume of peat moss, and plant them at the same level they were in. They were in gallon pots. Too early to tell what they will look like in 6 months, but I'm hoping for the best.

So, how about an update? Did anybody use the vinegar, and if so, how, and what were the results?

Your blueberries should do fine as long as you use sulphur to lower the ph. I read somewhere that when you have the soil so sour that nothing else will grow well blueberries are happy. It took me 2 plantings before I took that advice seriously but I now have very healthy bushes with good production.
RED

I have very alkaline soil and have to work constantly to keep it acid enough for blueberries. Then the four shrubs, small, have to be covered to save any for me to eat. The birds love them. Foliage is turning nice color now.

Donna

Since I started all of this I guess I should report what happened this year: I had 2 blueberry bushes out of 6 that were loaded with blueberries--and they tasted good.
It is a lot of work to grow blueberries where they don't want to grow. I'm really not sure it is worth it---but somebody told me I couldn't. I guess the teenager in me said "Oh yeah"!

The hardest part is the sulfur in the water. If I could acidify the soil and let that be enough I would be happy. I need to research that more. I was told to acidify the water by a local nurseryman who said his daughter grows blueberries--probably for the same reason I do it.

I just sprinkle acidifier around the plants about 3 times a yr and let God water it in. It is no more problem to acidify the soil than to fertilize.
RED

I think I'll try growing them this year without the watering system.

We, however, live in a desert state so I will have to water them generously with a hose.

The first couple of years to help them get started I put a soaker hose around them and then mulched heavily over the hose and hooked the hose up occassionally. It worked fine
RED

Thanks, I'll try it. Sounds easy enough.

i am from zone 5b in springville, utah; i am nuts to plant elder berries. are they going to do anything; am going to have to mulch them like blueberries

Elderberries grow here. I have 4 plants I dug out of my sister's pasture, and one more I got from somewhere. They do well here, and are part of my vegie garden windbreak. Nearby trees provide the mulch, and I flood irrigate them about once a month from June to September. The rest of the time they just get ignored.

This message was edited Apr 17, 2009 1:32 PM

I just bought a 50 lb bag of ammonium sulfate at the farm store. I put 4 to 6 oz. around each blueberry plant and in June will put another 2 to 4 oz. around each plant. Then when they are completely dormant next winter I will put another 4 oz. around them. The bag cost $16 and will last me(I have 12 plants) for many yrs.
RED

I am certainly not an expert on fertilizers, but I was told to use Sulfur granules that are 90% sulfur instead of the 20ish % sulfur of ammounium sulfate. The granules are a blue-green color and larger than the white granules of the ammonium sulfate.

I think I got this information from Nourse Farms where I purchased my blueberry plants.
What do you think?

I'm sure Nourse knows what they speak of. We have sev. pick your own blueberry growers around here and Ammonium sulfate is what they use. I'm sure sulfur granules will do the job as well if not better.
The main thing is to acidify the soil. Good luck
RED

If you have pick-your-own places near you, I'm sure your soil is not as Alkaline as mine. Our pH is around 7.5. I've heard that out water is about an 8.0. Apparently we have to take drastic measures if we are Looney enough to try and grow blueberries here!

Probably so, but all you have to do is just add more acidifier.
RED

I thought I ought to give you an update on my experiment with growing Blueberries in Utah.

It was a bust. I decided, after babying them for a long time that it was not worth the garden space. I didn't get enough fruit and they were a lot of work.

I went shopping and instructed my husband to pull them out and throw them away before I got home. I hate to pull out something that is struggling to grow! Sob!

I have now planted raspberries in their place that I know will produce.

Looney Linda,

Sorry I saw this thread late. I grow all of my blueberries in pots, so the ground pH is not an issue. I mix course sand (these days NAPA fired Fuller's Earth) with 100% peat to keep the peat from compacting. I get more blueberries than I can eat each year. The plants in the pots stay smaller then they would in the ground, but then you can move them around as space and needs dictate. Only thing they get besides water is an annual layer of the peat mix (about 1") and some years a (judiciously) small amount of ammonia sulfate. If your water is alkaline, can you collect and save rainwater and/or snow?

I just got sick of trying I guess.

Two nurserymen here told me not to plant in pots because the blueberry plants didn't like it. I wonder which blueberry plant told them that. LOL!

As for rainwater--we hardly get any in the fall and I wouldn't know how to collect snow runoff. I'll have to think about that one.

Anyway, I just decided it was much cheaper and easier to go to Costco and buy blueberries.

Thanks for the reply.

I think it cheaper in the long run to grow them and you can get properly ripened fruit that way (if you can keep the birds away!). Most of the costs are up front in the early years. I get berries all summer long.