2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38
Garden blueberry (Latin Vaccinium corymbosum) - low deciduous shrubs belonging to the Heather family. This species was introduced into culture first of all, at the beginning of the 20th century, and it was on its basis that a huge number of various varieties of blueberries were subsequently bred.
Description
Garden blueberries have long been considered the American trademark of the well-known common blueberry. By the way, in the USA and Canada, this berry has gained much more popularity than the well-known black currant.
The bizarre root system of this plant is completely devoid of root hairs characteristic of many cultures and is fibrous. Quite strong cylindrical and erect branches of bushes are covered with brownish or dark grayish bark, and the shoots are distinguished by a peculiar green color. As a rule, the height of the bushes does not exceed one to two meters.
Smooth, whole blueberry leaves are usually quite tough and small - they rarely exceed two and a half centimeters in width and three in length. All leaves grow on short petioles alternately and are characterized by a lanceolate or obovate shape with edges slightly curving downwards and blunt tops. The undersides of the leaf blades are endowed with lighter, strongly protruding veins, and their upper sides appear bluish-greenish due to the wax coating covering them.
The drooping flowers are characterized by a relatively small size and are endowed with white or pinkish water-lily-shaped corollas, reaching a length of six centimeters. And each flower has about eight to ten stamens. All flowers are located at the tops of last year's branches, several pieces on each.
Blueberry berries are distinguished by their oblong shape and blue color with a characteristic bluish bloom.
Growing and caring
You can plant blueberries both in spring and in autumn, but spring planting is still much more reliable - during the summer, tiny seedlings have time to take root perfectly and quickly get stronger to such an extent that the risk of freezing in winter will be minimized.
It is best to plant this crop in open sunny areas protected from the wind - if you plant it in the shade, then very few berries will form on it, and their taste will not be the most pleasant. In terms of soil, acidic soils are ideal for growing blueberries. By the way, blueberries are extremely intolerant of almost any predecessors, so it doesn't hurt that the area where it is planned to grow is fallow for at least a couple of years.
Blueberries are planted in the ground before tiny buds swell on them. It is advisable to purchase seedlings with a closed root system - in containers or in pots. However, it is unacceptable to simply dump them out of the container into the soil - the fragile roots of this culture are not able to unfold in the ground on their own, respectively, blueberries in this case will not develop properly. Immediately before planting, containers with seedlings are immersed in water for about a quarter of an hour, and then the seedlings are carefully removed from the container and gently kneaded with an earthen ball, thus trying to straighten the roots.
To plant your favorite berry culture, holes are pulled out in advance with a size of 60x60 centimeters and a depth of about half a meter. At the same time, it is recommended to loosen the bottoms and walls of the pits - this measure will provide air access to the roots.
Throughout the season, from time to time, it is necessary to thoroughly loosen the soil to a depth of eight centimeters. At the same time, loosening should not be too frequent (so that the blueberries do not dry out) or too deep (in this case, a horizontally located root system can be damaged - it is approximately fifteen centimeters from the soil surface). Also, the soil on the site must be mulched. And, of course, blueberries need regular weeding, high-quality pruning, as well as systematic watering and feeding.
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