North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Andrew Hahn <andrew.p.hahn@gmail.com>]

Thanks Lucky!
I should have said I am growing them in peat, just not in the plastic bag.
My only regret is not mixing some composted spruce needles into the peat.
It seems so lifeless even after 4 years.

I always cringed at relying on miracid to keep them going, and stopped
using it last year (that is when Duke collapsed). Instead I have been
mulching more, using organics to encourage fungi and inoculated the roots
with an ericoid mycorrhiza. There was some suggestion in papers I read that
a symbiosis with mycorrhiza is what blueberries are really missing, and
that the fungi provide the acidity they need.

I still don't think they could go strait into our alkaline soil, but
growing them with out the reliance of synthetic fertilizer would be much
more satisfying.

Andy

On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 10:01 AM, <nafex-request@lists.ibiblio.org> wrote:

> Andy,
> Pete Tallman has some good stuff, at the URLs linked below, on growing
> blueberries in peat bales, in CO, where soil pH and moisture would
> ordinarily be inhospitable to blueberry success.
>
> http://home.comcast.net/~ptallman/ColoradoBlueberries.keyhandout.pdf
>
> http://ptallman.home.comcast.net/~ptallman/index_blueberries.htm
>
> Years ago, Don Yellman recounted his experiences using iron sulfate for
> blueberries; I'll dig back through my archived messages and see if I can
> find and re-post that.
>
>
> Lucky
>