Raspberries and Blueberries

There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments.
~ Janet Kilburn Philli


So we went to Home Depot over the weekend, and I made an impulse purchase. Well, James did agree to it. We bought one raspberry and two blueberry plants! And now I am trying to figure out if that was a good idea. Where exactly am I going to put these plants? "That, dear Alli," I find my saying out loud, "Is a VERY good question!"

So can you grow fruit like that in containers? Turns out (luckily for me) you can! Even raspberries and blueberries? Yes. Phew!

But they do have their associated challenges. Raspberries, I have heard, can actually do fairly well in a container. The plant produces "canes" which pop up, need to be held up (trellis, poles/wires) or somehow tethered. The canes are spiny, prolific, and ought to produce a nice amount of fruit.

Blueberries are much the same, except instead of canes they grow in bushes. "High", "low", and "half-high" (a breed between the two previous ones). High ones can grown 5-8 feet tall as I understand it. Low ones grow 2-4 feet tall, and half high are inbetween there. I think I have half-high ones, though not sure yet. I have no idea how much these fruit bushes might produce in just one year. If a blueberry's acidic soil conditions aren't met, I've heard it might not produce at all... Also, according to some sources, blueberries don't really fully fruit until the 2nd or 3rd year! No!!! Hmm... this might makes things interesting.

Two thoughts come to mind... I need big pots. I need to figure out how to get acidic soil. Hmm...

Several ideas came up as I was researching for adding acidity to soil:

-add elemental sulfur to the soil (which will reduce acidity over time)
-peat moss (pretty acidic, but may not be sustainably harvested)
-add acidic things that will break down over time like tea, pine needles, pine bark, etc..
-use acidic potting soil (which you can buy in the store)

It's then, that I had a bizarre and crazy idea...

I recently learned how to make cheese. Sounds tangential, I know, and challenging, but bare with me. Each time I make mozzarella (which is surprisingly easy and fast... 30-45 minutes to make a batch), it leaves me with just under a gallon of whey (yellow liquid leftover when the curds are removed). I can use it to flavor bread and such, but that's only so much bread I can make. I could just throw it out. But that does seem kind of a waste. Whey has a lot of nutrients (dried whey has a HUGE market from everything from sports drinks to nutrition mixes for babies or the undernourished to fertilizers to animal feed). If you use it to water plants, I have heard that it can raise the acidity of soil so much that it can harm many plants. Well, except for acid-loving ones, right? Blueberries!!!!

My current plan is to water these plants with whey leftover from cheesemaking, and report on the results. If it works, it could be amazing. I think I am going to request a pH meter for my birthday to measure my success.

Here's the raspberry plant so far (in a self-built self-watering container, more on these in a future post).... note the pine needles on top used as a mulch/also to add acidity to the soil. Raspberry plants need acid soil, too, though not as much as blueberries.



Oooh, I love plants!