I found these beautiful chairs and table in my new/old garage. Goodness knows how long they'd been there, but I am so happy they were! I've set them up halfway into my driveway, so as to make my tiny yard a smidgeon larger.
Today's story starts inside my house, where I had just completed a first draft of a return I have to do every single year that makes me half insane every single year. On top of some problems I'm having with a bank, tax season, and my new puppy, filing this return sent me over the edge a tiny bit. I'm human! Here is what my kitchen looked like when the story I am about to tell had not yet even begun - it was a mess!
So I'm just about to have a cup of tea and a pecan sandy to calm myself down, when the doorbell rings. A box on my porch. Hm. I don't remember ordering anything...
The blueberry shrubs I'd ordered a month earlier, and wasn't expecting for another ten or more days, had arrived!
"OK" I'm thinking "I have a couple days to get these in the ground."
I take a look at the instructions. On the first page I read "Plant Immediately!"
"What if I can't do it immediately?" I ask myself. "They mean within a couple of days, right?"
Here's an excerpt from page two of the instructions, that answered my question without doubt.
I decided to postpone my cup of tea and cookie, and get cracking on getting six blueberry bushes into the ground, asap.
Thankfully, and with the help of a friend, I had just the day before finished preparing the sites for these bushes (he did the work!), thinking I would let the soil and amendments marry for a week, then test the mix for pH and adjust as necessary, long before the plants arrived.
While the bare root and fully dormant shrubs' roots were soaking in pails of water (as per the instructions - one hour only! Plant immediately after that one hour!), I tested the site for pH, which is supposed to be, ideally, 4.8.
Pretty darn close!!!
I'll have to get some slow release Sulphur or something to get the pH a tiny bit more acidic, but for today, it's perfect.
Now for the fun part - into the ground! This shot is of the final growing place for four of the bushes. Two more are planted on the west side of the house. Sorry there are no shots of those two. By the time those were in, I'd had quite enough.
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Thank you!!!
May you be making blueberry pies in no time at all.
That is a fond wish of mine, so thank you. I love blueberry pie. It'll be a few years though. These are supposed to be three different varieties, although they were not labelled in any way.
Last year I was lucky enough to buy a case of blueberries from the cheap store, I did not make a pie, but made some of the best blueberry jam that I have ever made. I would not care what they are called as long as they are good to eat.
I remember 2 years ago, when all my trees arrived. We were frantically digging for days, to get them into the ground. Mine weren't fresh dug as yours were, but they were breaking dormancy and had to get into the ground! What a job!
Thank goodness you had prepped the site ahead!
That was pure luck really. I thought I had a lot more time. I see a few greening buds on these.
Excellent!
Well this is a good lesson for if I ever consider plant delivery. I'm so bad at preparing ahead. It's bad enough when they're still in pots and need to get into the ground before they get too big.
I even got a call a few days ago that they would be shipped mid-April, and because of shipping delays they might be late. But here they are! They arrived completely unlabelled, even though I ordered three different varieties, early, mid and late. One is high bush, supposedly. I have no idea which, so I just stuck them in the ground.
Don't forget to cover the soil really thickly with mulch. As it is originally a forest plant, it is best to water it exclusively with rainwater, as the water from the tap is too hard. You should also begin slowly but surely to look for tasty recipes. :-)
OK! I did water them with tap water, and our water is very hard. I guess a water collection system is gonna have to make it to my list of stuff to do at my new home! Thanks for the advice.
Why wouldn't they pack the roots in soil??? They would have a much better chance of survival...
They look very healthy really. Nice fat buds on them, the roots had clearly been removed from sandy soil very recently. Maybe that's the urgency, because they are bare root. Bare root would cost much less to ship too. I was surprised how little I paid for shipping.
As long as they are still healthy, I guess it's a good method... Maybe soon you'll have a blueberry patch!
!PIZZA !ALIVE !LOL
Looks like you manifested some blueberry bushes quicker than you expected! Not a bad problem to have. It all happens when it needs to happen.
There are days when I wish a bit less needs being done, like this one. But I am delighted every time I look at those bushes, I imagine the birds are happy about them too - their does seem to be more of them in my tiny yard already. Of course, it is spring. What a joyous time! When I'm not plotzing over the coming collapse of the world as I have come to imagine it. I'm hard at work manifesting/imagining a new, more loving, world.
It looks like you're getting busy and will have your hands full this summer @owasco, and I find it exciting because I know you're up for the challenge and enjoy staying busy even though it can get overwhelming at times.
LOL, these are the type of questions I ask when seeing things like this too, and apparently we are not the only one's because they had the answer well covered in that instruction packet. 😅
I'm thinking you wouldn't have wasted much time anyway (even if there were no instructions) because your green thumb intuitiveness would have guided you to get them in the ground ASAP.
Those blueberry shrubs are going to be beautiful with your care, I'm so excited to see them grow!
Have a great evening my friend 🤗
PS. Those chairs make me think of sherbert and are strangely appealing.
They are very old, and a perfect reddish orange color that I just love!!! Then there's this tiny matching table.
I'd like more time to nap. This puppy and the other human charge are keeping me up nights something awful!
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We bought some perennial tubers (there were in fact about 50-60 of them) in the package and my man was surprised when he saw that they were thick tubers and long roots, which we then still put in the ground despite the ground frost a few weeks ago. Some of the perennials have now broken through the soil, but I fear a large proportion will probably not have survived the frost. The bag was filled with some soil, which I thought was a good thing as the roots and tubers were at least not completely dry in the bag, or without soil they would probably have fared worse? But we are beginners too.
Are blueberries the smaller berries and huckleberries the bigger berries? In any case, I like them both very much and wish you that the three different bushes will thrive. Don't forget to take some growth stage pictures, so we can watch the process nicely :)
P.S. I really like the chairs!
Early growth is generally high in starch and sugar and can withstand a bit of frost. Depends on the variety. I believe as long as the tubers didn't freeze, you should get something out of them. The "soil" in the bag was probably just a medium to store them in during dormancy.
I am not familiar with huckleberries so idk.
The chairs are fabulous, they really are! Not everyone can appreciate them though. I'm sure many think I'm nuts for loving them so much.