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Success... and Failure...
In Berries

Success… and Failure…


First, the success..

I decided to turn my raised bed Veggie Garden into a perennial Berry Garden.  It was a bit of a mix before as I did plant some Honeyberry  plants and some Hardy Kiwi's.  I loved seeing those plants come to life in the spring.  That is what encouraged me to do more.. and more I did!

Last year, I added a few varieties of black berries and raspberries.  They are all planted in a row with trellis.  I keep telling myself I will be able to keep them in check by training them on that trellis, so far, so good.  I also got a Justaberry, a Red Current, a few everbearing strawberries, an "Evergreen Huckleberry" and a Lingonberry only because they were on sale, but I'm glad I got it.  The Lingonberry already gave us a few fruits last year and they are tart delicious. Last, but not least, I got an Issai Cold Hardy Kiwi that is self fertile. 

Everybody went into the ground early last year and everybody made it through summer happy, with some giving us fruit that we did not expect till this year. 

With that success, I stepped it up a notch this year!

Another cold hardy Kiwi female (Ken's red)

6 Different Blueberries (Toro, Chandler, BlueRay, Pink-Lemonaid, Duke, Patriot)

A white Current, Red Jostaberry and a Logan-Berry.

I also ordered 4 diffrent verietes of Lingonberry to act as ground cover in the boxes.  Those have not come in yet.

I prepped all the beds by weeded and loosing up the soil, adding some fresh compost (slightly acidic pine compost from local nursery)

Sprinkled some fertilizer for acid loving plants, and put all my berries into the ground and followed up with a couple of inches of fine pine mulch.  I was so proud of myself.👍

I had tested my soil before and it tested as being acidic so I thought I had the green light for blueberries.  Well my soil is 6.0, which is acidic enough for the Lingonberry, kiwi's, Huckleberries, Honeyberries and rest of the berries.. 

HOWEVER I just found out blueberries like it around 5.0 or less..  The failure🤦‍♂️

They all went into the ground last week.  I will be digging out the blue berries and surrounding soil starting today and for the next few days after work😔

The game plan it to collect all the pine mulch and set it aside, mix peat-moss and sulfur into the soil before putting the blueberries back in and covering with pine mulch.

I was told that the peat moss will give it a drop in acidity right away and the sulfur will gradually break down making the beds acidic for the long haul while the slowly composting pine mulch will help keep it that way.

Any tips, tricks, or advice before getting started in re-prepping my beds is appreciated.👍

by Latin_Knight_

8 Comments

  8. NoSolid6641

    Hey, so we have 20 blueberry plants in our berry patch and we have our soil made up for us by our local soil guy. I can’t recommend this enough. It is so crucial that someone with this like particular expertise makes you a custom blend. To give you an idea we’re on year two and we have already halfway through the season harvested over 50 lb of blueberries. So with that being said, once you get your soil right make sure to give them water and mulch but they do not like wet feet. So be really careful not to drown them. They need to be in extremely well draining soil.

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