Secrets of Growing Blueberries at Your Summer Cottage: 3 Secrets Many People Don't Know
Anyone who dreams of growing blueberries on their own plot faces a number of problems.
There are certain tricks and secrets for growing it, but not everyone knows about them.
An expert of the online publication BelNovosti, agronomist, landscape designer Anastasia Kovrizhnykh says that there are 3 possible scenarios for blueberries to develop when they move to your plot.
- Blueberries live and enjoy life, regularly giving you a harvest.
- The blueberry just sits, its branches stacked evenly on the hummock, and produces no berries.
- Berry bushes on your site time after time give oak, leaves turn red, roots dry out, and eventually, sooner or later, after certain torments, the bush goes to heaven.
Of course, gardeners "vote" for one scenario.
So what is the secret of growing such a tasty but capricious fellow?
Let's figure it out. When you buy a seedling from a nursery, you tacitly buy not only blueberries, but also its little friend-companion - a symbiotic fungus that lives in the roots of the plant and forms mycorrhiza with them.
This mushroom essentially serves the blueberry, acting as a kind of cook and nanny-mother, feeding it with a spoon.
Without it, blueberries are unable to absorb nutrients and water, since their roots do not have absorbent hairs, the function of which is performed by the fungus.
The only thing left to do is to not screw up this wonderful tandem.
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In order for the mushroom to live and continue to delight the roots of blueberries with its vital activity, three conditions must be met:
- provide loose, acidic peat soil (pH 3.3-4.4);
- make sure that the soil does not dry out;
- allocate square meters.
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Next, we mulch the soil under the bush: with sawdust/pine needles/bark or cover it with breathable agrofabric.
For the central part of Russia, the best varieties are: "Duke" (early) and "BlueCrop" (medium). These are the most common varieties that have proven themselves well among ordinary amateur gardeners.
