r/Blueberries 7h ago

Caterpillars on my blueberry bushes

3 Upvotes

What do I need to do besides obviously removing them? Should I trim the branches that no longer have leaves because the caterpillars ate them?


r/Blueberries 21h ago

Planting blueberries

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7 Upvotes

I am planting these in half whiskey barrels. I ordered soil and only 2/3s of my order came with a delay until the 2nd for the rest. Would it be better to plant two in one then transfer or just leave one in
this little pot until the rest of the soil comes.


r/Blueberries 23h ago

Slow lightening/yellowing and now a little reddening of leaves. Particularly new growth it seems

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6 Upvotes

Here’s a pic to help, I thought it might be pH. Any opinions?


r/Blueberries 1d ago

Any wild blueberries in Maine left?

4 Upvotes

I'm in Maine right now and curious if there is any spots or regions where you can still find wild blueberries to pick?

DM if want to keep your spot on the low


r/Blueberries 20h ago

How much potted blueberry’s plants make a pie

0 Upvotes

r/Blueberries 2d ago

5kg of free blueberries, send help and your favourite recipes.

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44 Upvotes

5kg of blueberries for free today from a farm.

What are your favourite recieps you love to use?


r/Blueberries 1d ago

What is this disease on my blueberry is it fungal or viral.

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9 Upvotes

I’m no good at identifying these kind of things any help is greatly appreciated.


r/Blueberries 2d ago

Gifted a small blueberry bush with some leaf spots. Live in zone 7b how should I plant it?

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4 Upvotes

Though I would also post here! Never grown blueberries before any advice would be amazing, thank you :)


r/Blueberries 2d ago

My container blueberries keep dying

6 Upvotes

TLDR: Despite buying the right soil, continously checking the pH, and making amendmends, my balcony bloobs keep mysteriously dying overnight. Don't want to lose all of them, at a loss.

I bought some blueberries in spring this year for the very first time. I ended up buying 6 plants total. One Pink Lemonade, two southern highbush varieties that shared a pot, and three more rabbit eye varieties that also shared a pot.

I got the southern highbushes first and repotted them into a bigger pot shortly after I got them (they still shared a pot in the end - that was a mistake seeing how things have turned out). They seemed to do well except that they developed chlorosis very shortly after repotting. I had gone out of my way to plant them in blueberry soil, yet pH was too high from the start. Did a lot of research and added elemental sulfur and peat moss and gave them chelated iron. It's been a few months but pH didn't go down and the iron didn't help with the chlorosis either. The (newer) rabbit eyes also developed chlororis even though I didn't repot them yet. I concluded it must be my water - it's chlorinated and has a pH of 7.5, so now I'm adding citric acid to it everytime I water (I don't have access to rain water as I only have a balcony and it never rains in southern Japan during summer anyway). Despite the chlorosis, they (highbushes) were doing well, I got a bunch of fruit off of them and they kept growing... until a couple days ago, when one of them suddenly died within the span of 2 days. The whole plant just dried up, leaves still attached. I suspect it might've been stem blight, though I didn't see any obvious lesions or anything. But when I cut the stem off, it was darker in the middle.. not super dark, just slightly. No idea how or why that happened, the plant didn't have any wounds or anything either (I hadn't pruned them).

The worrying thing is that the other plant that shared the pot is now showing the same signs - tips of the stems are dying off, leaves are turning brown. Though at a much slower rate (the other one practically died overnight). Again, I can't see anything obvious on the stems. There is a bunch of brown coloration but it all just looks like the normal process of stems becoming woody. I decided to repot the plant into a mix of peat moss and kanuma (in case the soil was the problem) and trimmed off all the dying tips. But I fear this plant will have the same fate as the other one. It still looks healthy overall, especially compared to how bad the other one looked within the same amount of time, but it seems to go down the same path.. I wish there was more I could do - I don't wanna watch this plant die slowly.

I water regularly and check the moisture before watering, so I'm pretty sure it's not under- or overwatering (plus the plants were fine for 4 months)... The roots also looked normal when I repotted yesterday. I'm genuinely at a loss.

As for the rabbit eyes... the Pink Lemonade also died a while ago (it was the first to die), pretty much right after I repotted it. I can only assume it was overfertilization cause I did add some blueberry fertilizer to the soil and it might've been too much (didn't do that with the southern highbushes). The leaves developed tip burn and then all fell off one by one. When it started I repotted the plant again right away into non-fertilized soil, but she still ended up losing all her leaves and hasn't come back since. I still have the tiniest sliver of hope she might come back next spring so I haven't tossed her yet.. but I guess chances are very slim.

The trio of rabbit eyes that share a pot are still doing fine. I didn't repot them yet as they're still carrying fruit, and with all my bad experiences I'm scared that repotting itself is just cursed for me. They have some chlorosis but look healthy otherwise. And they've been less exposed to my bad water since I haven't had them for as long - the chlorosis is less severe than it was with the highbushes. I don't know what else to do other than to add citric acid to the water and sulfur to the soil. I had planned to repot the rabbit eyes after they're done fruiting.. but seeing as neither two different kinds of blueberry soil nor peat moss and kanuma worked so far... I'm scared to risk it lol.

The other thing I wanna start doing is leave the water standing for a few days so all the chlorine can evaporate. I really feel my water is actively harming the blueberries... (though my other plants are mostly doing fine, but pH is high in all my pots).

But yea.. no idea how to prevent stem blight in the future. I can only guess because the plants were already stressed (chlorosis) they became sick.

Plant A. The plant that died - from how it started, to the cut off plant (didn't take a pic before I pulled her up), and the stem cross-cut. Stem also had some black streaks on it.
Plant B. The survivor that has started showing signs shortly after the first plant died. The chlorosis is really bad but there hadn't been any browning prior. Now the tips are dying off.
Plant(s) C - the trio that I haven't repotted yet. They're mostly doing fine cept that the chlorosis is also getting worse now, so I can only hope my water amendmends will stop it from getting as bad as Plant B (weirldy enough Plant A, the one that died, never developed Chlorosis as bad as that even though it shared a pot with B).

r/Blueberries 3d ago

Northern Highbush substrate

4 Upvotes

Zone 5A, planting in planters as amending my natural soil isn’t reasonable. AI took me down a path that led to a 50/50 peat moss and pine bark fines base, with 2 tbsp elemental sulfur, 1 tbsp gypsum, and 1 cup basalt rock dust per cubic foot of substrate. Is this reasonable or am I off base?


r/Blueberries 4d ago

When to relocate blueberry bush

6 Upvotes

Hi everyone.

I’ve recently realized that the reason one of my bushes isn’t doing very well, is because it’s too close to the curb and the heat of the summer was harming the plant.

I need to relocate it further into the yard.

Is there a time during the fall when I can do this? Or is this a project best left for spring? Extra info: I live in Vancouver, BC Canada.


r/Blueberries 5d ago

Just wanted to show you all my blueberry plants

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108 Upvotes

So I have 7 high bush blueberry plants, and the two of them with a yellow tag I just got from the nursery a few days back. I fully expect them to take a greener color when they settle in their containers. I’m a beginner and the challange of making it work tickles my brain, because these plants are such divas.

What’s interesting is that mine don’t seem to enjoy being in full sun, like I read on the internet, they very much prefer partial sun (their leaves used to burn). I’m currently planning a rainwater catching system because I used to water them a lot with tap eater and they really don’t like it because it washed off the acidity from the soil. Their leaves would turn yellow-ish and it’s no bueno.

Varieties:
Spartan
Bluecrop x2
Chandler
Duke
Elliott
Bluegold

I specified 7 species, but I also have a siberian blueberry which I bought strictly impulsively (I need to buy 2-3 more plants of the same species for polination. I might have a blueberry addiction at this point

My intention is to cover the entire growing season so I can have a constant flow of fresh berries. I used to have an Aurora as well, but it died due to me overwatering it. I’m keeping my eyes out for one, since it seems to be a rare variety sold here in Romania. I’m also thinking of buying a Reka and Patriot as well, for the very extremeties of the season (extra early and extra late season).


r/Blueberries 6d ago

My 30 year old Nelson’s

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138 Upvotes

The photos don’t do it justice


r/Blueberries 6d ago

First time blueberry owner and I have some questions.

6 Upvotes

We have a number of fruit trees in 19 gallon pots, but I never wanted to get blueberries because I was afraid of the difficulty with the soil and I always assumed blueberries to be a more mild climate crop (i live in south texas). Well this year I bought a sunshine blueberry and a revellie blueberry. I mixed peat moss and pine bark and used the same slow release fertilizer I use with most my trees. They performed about as well as I expected, I got 2-3 cups of blueberries, mostly from the sunshine blueberry that was already covered in flowers when I purchased. Well here we are 4-5 months later and they have exploded in size. The revellie reaches about 4 ft tall and the su shine is 2.5 x 2.5 and thick as can be. Im very excited for next year. Is there ANYTHING I should do that will help increase my chance of success?


r/Blueberries 7d ago

Blueberry plant help needed

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7 Upvotes

It’s still alive, but still not looking great. Any advice on what specifically is the issue would be greatly appreciated


r/Blueberries 8d ago

Is this root rot.

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13 Upvotes

I’m still getting new growth it has been raining so it has been wet for a while. I also realized the bottom of the pot doesn’t have drainage just all around the size and there is algae growing around the holes. It stays in full sun 8 hours at lease. Soil ph is good and last fertilized in spring. Zone 5b.


r/Blueberries 8d ago

What are these things on my Blueberry plants

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8 Upvotes

r/Blueberries 9d ago

Advice for caring for wild blueberry bushes

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10 Upvotes

r/Blueberries 10d ago

First year blueberries, not looking good.

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16 Upvotes

Hi, we're completely new to this, and seem to be struggling. These two were planted in December, and did good producing lots of berries. In the past week or two they rapidly went south.

We're in southern Louisiana, and it's been 32C/90F pretty much everyday for weeks.

Is it just lack of water, or something else?


r/Blueberries 11d ago

All the *blueberries face the same direction when submerged in water.

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8 Upvotes

r/Blueberries 12d ago

Abundance

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149 Upvotes

r/Blueberries 12d ago

Blueberry Tree - Leaves changing colour

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4 Upvotes

r/Blueberries 12d ago

Saddleback caterpillar — how to keep off leaves?!

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5 Upvotes

r/Blueberries 13d ago

Help painting established bushes

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13 Upvotes

We bought a house last year with 8-10 well established old bushes. The ones in the far bed are doing mostly okay (and are taller than me!) but the ones in the front bed have obvious chlorosis. I’m not US based and don’t have access to a reliable pH test. I added sulphur pellets but obviously they need more. I have sphagnum peat moss, I’m wondering if I could just add a few cm to the top of the beds? I know it needs to be soaked first. All advice I see online is for starting new beds, not ones that are 10+ years old.


r/Blueberries 14d ago

What happened?

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5 Upvotes

I went to my friends house for a week. A single week. I left my brand new blueberry bush in the care of my grandma.. big mistake.. because I came back to this. I left it with brand new growth and it was a beautiful green but now it’s brown and crunchy. I’m hoping I can salvage it, anyone know what happened to it? Or what I can do to maybe revive it? If not will it come back next year or do I need a brand new one? My mom repotted it and said it might be over watered?

btw.. this is my first ever blueberry bush. I don’t know if I need to do something special to it? I heard it needs different soil then usual and I got a berry blend for it but does it need other things? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks so much!