Acid soils
How to bring down my soil pH between 4 and 5 to plant blueberries : The trick is to put a handful of sulphur in fresh soil before planting yor blueberry shrub.
Blueberry shrubs pruning
Pruning is done during dormancy in cold dry weather conditions after leaf fall. Dry weather avoids disease proliferation when making cuts and allows wood to heal faster. Pruning shears must be clean, wipe it with alcohol or fire to kill all bacteries and viruses. This must be done regularly during pruning day. It avoids progagating diseases in the orchard. Pruning consists of aereting your bushes to allow light inside the shrubs. We are keeing 5 main branches with the current…
Blueberry jam recipe
This recipe is quite simple to carry out : necessary ingredients are blueberries (i use frozen ones), sugar and citric acid (lemon juice). I put together 5 kilos of blueberries and 3 kilos of sugar no more because my fruits are naturally sweet already and bring it to boil, let it cook for about ten minutes in order to reach 55 brix degrees ( brix being the unit to measure the sugar content, it is done with a refractometer). I then…
The planting
Soil : It grows well in draining and acid soils, best to avoid too heavy soils mostly consisting of clay. Our orchards are installed on plots cleared from deciduous mostly chestnuts which gives them an especially high organic matter content thanks to leaves and underbush humus piling up. This organic abundance gives blueberries a flavour beyond compare. You also can plant it in pot on a balcony. Choose a 5 liters pot then increase the size every two years until…