Blueberry, how do you take your coffee?

Coffee grounds on new BB plants?

Adam,

I have heard that coffee grounds might have an acidifying effect (slight) and that blueberry wants acid soil ( well drained!)- so I think coffee grounds won't harm and might help.

What is your soil like to begin with? I use coffee grounds on everything, but I have high ph soil, + very clay-ey, and so I am throwing all the compost, dinner scraps, cardboard and non treated sawdust at it that I can, including coffee grounds. I think the main value is the texture of coffee grounds.

I also rip open used tea bags and dump them into the compost. Tannic acid?(Sadly my stomach is not happy with strong tea but my mouth is !)

I might try dwarf blueberry in a container - next year.

good luck
Heather Y

Heather,
I thank you for your response.

I started with blueberries last December. I am still learning and find it an interesting challenge. I would like to have a reliable soil PH meter, but I don’t want to put out the bucks for something that might not get the job done. As to which are reliable, I have put the question out on DG but, so far, am not receiving any info.

Our blueberry soil is sandy loam with a very small amount of clay over a clay base. The plants set on a raised row mulched with pine needles. There is good drainage along a slight grade plus water percolates through the soil well. Judging by native flora, the soil’s PH is slightly acid, I surmise.

I planted six different cultivars of Rabbit Eye. I will probably collect soil samples and have them analyzed for growing blueberries, something I probably should have done from the get go.

Yea, I like sawdust to work with. Years past, you could get it from sawmills in the area. But now what few sawmills that are left sell it to paper mills which burn it as fuel in the boilers. A right-of-way crew came through the area the other day. They had a chipping machine. I allowed them to dump two large truckloads of chips on the property. I have them in mind for mulch. I also have access to pecan hulls. If the will is available–the rake is–there’s an unlimited supply of pine needles.

I don’t know why I’m into it so. A lady I visited with the other day said that she had no trouble growing blueberries, but she did have trouble getting any to eat. “Even the bluebirds eat them,” she says, and I’m standing there thinking that the bluebird is an insect eater. I didn’t take it up with her, the shape of the mouth and all. I just paid for the wettable sulfur, shouldered it, and headed out into the mid-July heat.

If even the bluebirds eat them, I won’t stand a chance against the jaybirds, I thought on my way to the pickup.

I’ll probably collect and send the soil samples tomorrow morning before it gets so hot.

Thanks for your response, A.A.! It gives such a nice snapshot of your surroundings l...yeah sometimes it just is not the right time to get into correcting facts with someone ( grin).

I think the solution might be _netting_ for you and that lady. If I ever get any fruit on those plums or the cherry I hope to plant, let alone blueberries, I will have to invest in netting - NYC is on a major flyway favored by any and every migratory species you can think of-my birder friends tell me that the three biggest city parks and the Brooklyn/Queens coastline are avian rest stops- it is a long flight!

Your soil BTW sounds very blueberry positive as it is, but adding anything acidifying like pine needles won't hurt,and they do make good mulch. I got some mulch from a group doing composting on a city site which has cocao shells in it and smells like chocolate!

good luck
Heather
PS
Do you have the Stellar Jays or the Eastern Blue Jays?

Eastern Blue Jay, I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen a Stellar Jay, but I just started paying close attention to all birds a few years ago. The Blue Jays also go heavy for the figs. The fig trees are a couple of hundred yards for the Rabbiteyes. If I can get both choice at the same time, maybe they’ll fly themselves to death.

He he! Those bird brains are smarter than you'd think - especially Jays and other Corvidae relatives like ravens and crows, magpies etc . Parrots I do not think are in that bird family but they too are "bird brains" - BTW that's the title of a book on the most intelligent bird species.

I like these birds, they are pushy, yes, but what characters they are!

Stellars I have seen in California, in Yosemite Natl Park and nearby. They are an astoundingly "blue" blue - they look almost saphire blue in some lights, sometimes dark teal. Stunning looks, just as "sqawky" as their cousins.

Zone 8 a, should be no trouble growing rabbit-eye blueberries.

They are shallow rooted, so water them when they dry out. Great decision to plant in December.

Mulch is a good idea. The pine straw is somewhat acidic, if you can mulch with that you should not need to do any serious chemical work to lower Ph of soil. Mulch makes it easier to weed too.

You can get a sample of soil analyzed by the county extension service.

As far as the birds go, just plant more bushes. You cannot afford the price of the shotgun shells to keep the birds off! The chickadees and cardinals help me pick and are not at all shy where blueberries are involved.
The lady is right on the bluebirds, mine come by and eat a few, even though they are primarily insect eaters.

Over all they have been the easiest garden fruit that I have grown.

hey SE, post again - I want to see your bird pictures!
HeatherY

Nice to read y’all’s posts, happy days to you.

I dropped two oat meal boxes, each half-filled with BB dirt, at the extension service several days ago (He wasn’t in, so I didn’t get a vis-à-vis, left a good note and workable phone #, though). I’ve heard nary a peep, got to get by there and remind him who’s paying part of his salary. . . . No, he’ll do, came by last summer and helped diagnose an Apache sweet potato problem (That’s a good story for any sweet potato tender, ‘Y).

An even better story–being this is a BB related thread–is that someday soon, I feel at the moment, I’ll fess-up and tell why I presently have only two Rabbiteye survivors out of eight plants set out last December. It will probably make any BB tender, or teacher, sit stiff and frown. It was a struggle for me–even more so after I pinpointed the problem–watching those six slowly die.

SE, if I can get eight bushes into moderate production, do you think that’ll be enough BB’s for me and the birds? I want the lion’s share!