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  • From: pam AT twinoaks.org
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Blueberry culture
  • Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 22:07:49 +0100


Hi Rick,
We had poorly performing blueberries for some years. Two
years ago we got serious about improving the situation. We got a
soil test, and based on that, added sulfur pellets and greensand.
We were going to add Epsom salts for magnesium, but decided we
had spent enough money for one year.
Secondly we cut down a line of trees that were limiting the
sunlight reaching the blueberries. Thirdly we paid a lot more
attention to watering, and installed a primitive kind of drip irrigation
that had been kicking around in the shed for years, still in the box.
Blueberry plants have very shallow roots and need a lot of water.
Maybe 2"/week while flowering and fattening up the berries.
Some or all of these things really helped. We have been getting
much better harvests. We repeated the soil test last fall, noted that
the pH had improved, and decided to do nothing different.
For years we have been mulching all round the blueberries with
cardboard and oak sawdust. Some people here were worried all
that sawdust would make the soil too acidic - not so - as the soil
tests have shown.
I do believe that soils high in organic matter can let plants
thrive that would not do so in a soil of the same ph but with low
organic matter. I have no scientific proof. It may be out there
somewhere.....
Good luck,
Pam Dawling, Twin Oaks Community, Virginia





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