Blueberries
I started out with 6 blueberries bushes planted in my landscaping burms. I picked low growing bushes so that they'd fit into the landscape.I planted 2 each of Blue Jay, Olympia and Elliot. They did splendidly in the burms even after the grass invaded them and I wasn't tending them very well.
After 12 years, I moved them into a new bed and made the mistake of mulching them with landscaping fabric. They did NOT like this at all. Not only does it keep them from getting a continued supply of organic material (something they really need) but it keeps new suckers from sprouting and renewing the plants. The plants began to decline after a number of years and while I've removed the fabric and added lots of organic material they're still whining. This year I've given several of them a radical pruning to see if that will help.
In the meantime, last year I prepared a whole new blueberry bed. I started with a base of rotted wood, something that old timers say blueberries like especially. Then I added native soil mixed with 3/4 of a bale of peat moss. To that I added several loads of composted horse manure. Last but not least I added a double row of leaky pipe so that the plants would get water from both sides.
I let the bed sit over the winter and then last spring I planted 4 new blueberries from 1 gallon cans. I mixed in another 5 gallon bucket of peat in each planting hole.
Viola! Happy blueberry bushes. I was a bad kid and let the plants bear fruit last summer. The berries were big and juicy and wonderful! This year, I've pruned them and promise to remove the flowers so they can put their energy into establishing themselves better. It'll be hard to wait but I know it will pay off over the years.
These new plants are:
- Berkeley
- Blue Crop
- Chandler
- Earli Blue
Gooseberries
I planted a Poorman gooseberry in one of my landscaping burms in 1988. It's a prickly bush. But the fruit turn a lovely burgundy red and are sweet with a nice perfumey flavor. I've moved the bush once and it survived nicely. It has suckered a bit and I now have a second bush ready to dig up and transplant.I planted the gooseberry because when I was a kid I had an uncle who would tuck us into bed at night and say "There'll be gooseberries for breakfast." When I finally discovered that they weren't a joke but a real fruit and you could grow ones that were sweet rather than sour, I had to plant one.
They're usually ripe in the middle of the summer and are very good on cereal in the morning.
Grapes
I planted two grapes back in 1988. We built a arbor for them and they now completely cover it each year. I added two grapes that various people gave to me but they haven't really taken hold which is a good thing given how well the other two are doing.Interlaken Grape is a seedless golden grape that is very vigorous and highly productive. My only problem with it is that unless we have a really hot summer the fruit doesn't fully ripen before the fall rains come and the grapes split. In warm years, I get pounds and pounds of fruit. In cooler years, the raccoons seem to enjoy the fruit even if it splits.
I thought that my other grape was a Candice Grape which is a red seedless. But when it finally started to produce grapes they were neither red nor seedless. Instead what I've got is a early ripening seeded green grape. It's very sweet and ripens even in the years the Interlaken doesn't make it. It's not as vigorous as the Interlaken so it doesn't produce as many grapes which is really a good thing the years that I gets tons from the Interlaken.
Red Currants
I planted a "Red Lake" Red Currant in one of my burms back in 1988. It continues to bear fruit every year. The fruit is a little sour--as it's supposed to be. But the birds like them and they have a nice red decorative effect.I've dug it up and moved it with no ill effects. One year a mole dug a tunnel under it and it fell over, but it survived that too.
Red Currants are basically carefree. I've only pruned it when I've moved it and to deal with the odd form it produced after it fell over because of the mole tunnel.