"My blueberries are drowning!!!"
Wait? Drowning? They are plants, right? They LIKE water... well, everything in moderation.
We had a crazy storm this past weekend (people in MA were using boats to go down flooded streets), and I temporarily transplanted the blueberries into small pots as I tried to find the best soil and best container to use to plant them (i was thinking I wanted to mostly imitate the raspberry container). Well, I put them outside when it was raining in an EMPTY bucket, and then a day later (and lots of rain), I came back to find their pots well below the water surface! I think this definitely qualifies as nearly drowning these two plants!
So I've been getting to thinking... my balcony is going to be a little tight space-wise coming up pretty soon. I would love to do blueberries, but the more I read the more I am finding they seem to take a lot of space (at least compared to my other compact plant varieties), and I can't plant many other edible plants in the same container with the blueberries. This is mainly cause of the high acidity level of the soil. There just aren't a lot of companion plants for them. Hmm... that combined with blueberries producing best (or sometimes at all) only in their 2nd or 3rd years and beyond... In future I think I would get a more mature (possibly more compact variety) plant from a nursery instead of Home Depot.
So...
I recently came to the hard decision that my blueberries are going to be second priority plants. Tragic, I know. I'm still going to grow them, but they are going to take second place to more productive plants. Basically meaning they will get not the biggest containers and only partial sun in my bedroom - luckily we chose blueberries that can handle partial sun. Sigh... blueberries just sounded so appealing... and so good-looking. James, being the amazing gentleman he is, agreed to the blueberries hanging out in the bedroom just as long as their pots didn't leak onto the floor. Sounds reasonable.
More on the blueberry saga in future posts!
Poor blueberries!! Did you _see_ people floating down the street in boats? Because that's awesome and scary!
ReplyDeleteI actually didn't see folks in boats where we are, but places nearby people did bring boats out.. most of the time it looked like it was for fun, but a few times it was to transport people across impassible water bits. Even some of the highways just north of us were closed down with all the water. A bunch of neighbors also got A LOT of water in their basements. All pumps in all hardware storms near us were sold out. Here's a few photos on a news site:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.necn.com/pages/specials_marchflood/
Wow. Poor blueberries. Don't worry, they're tough. It looks like they can handle pretty high water tables:
ReplyDeletehttp://asae.frymulti.com/abstract.asp?aid=26076&t=1
Blueberries are hardy plants. I am impressed. It's a good thing, too, cause we're getting a lot more rain. Thanks for sending the article, by the way! =)
ReplyDelete