- Over my years gardening, (soft music)
I have grown a ton
of different types of berries in containers
and I've had varying degrees of success.
My raspberries and blackberries did really well.
And you can see right here this blueberry,
it has seen better days,
whereas that blueberry over there
is actually doing really well.
So in today's video, we have a grower
in the epic gardening ecosystem
all the way over in North Carolina, Meg,
who has grown fantastic container blueberries.
She's gonna take you through the way she does it
from start to finish.
And a huge thank you to Bushel and Berry
for sponsoring today's video.
I've been growing not only their blueberries,
but their blackberries, raspberries,
and everbearing strawberries
for about three or four years now.
Some awesome container varieties
that do really well in their available nationwide.
So check them out in the video description
and let's get over to Meg.
- Hello everyone.
And Kevin, thank you so much for having me back
on the Epic Gardening Channel.
I'm so excited to be here.
And today I'm gonna tell you guys
about all the failures that I've had over the years
trying to grow blueberries.
There's been a lot of them,
you will have learned from them too.
And you guys are gonna be growing
the best blueberries around in containers.
Yeah, I said in containers.
Blueberries are definitely something
that you should be growing in your home garden.
One, because they are delicious and nutritious,
unless you're allergic.
Two, they're actually native to North America.
So if you live in North America,
you automatically have the perfect environment
for growing blueberries.
Although there aren't many places
that you can't grow them either.
And three, they're perennials.
So you only have to plant them once
and they come back year after year.
And with proper care, blueberries can live 50 plus years.
Although the ones I'm gonna tell you about today
lived much, much shorter than that.
But that was my bad.
Now that I've hopefully convinced you to grow blueberries,
it's important to talk about
what kind of blueberries to grow
because there are hundreds of different varieties.
Remember when I said almost everyone
can grow blueberry plants no matter where you live?
It all boils down to the variety.
Some varieties are more suited to colder climates,
some are more suited to warmer climates.
It all depends on how many chill hours that variety needs.
And chill hours are simply the number of hours per year
that the temperature drops below 45 degrees Fahrenheit.
And if your blueberries don't get
those required amount of chill hours in the winter,
they're not gonna bloom in the spring
and you're not gonna get any blueberries.
So that's why it's so important.
So for instance,
one of the blueberries I'm gonna plant today,
this variety is called Berrybux
and everything that I need to know
is right here on the label.
So the chill hours that are required
for this variety are 600.
And so it's suited to zones five through eight.
I'm in zone 7B,
kind of right on the cusp of zone eight.
So I know that this variety
is going to perform well in my area.
The good news is
if you're shopping in your local garden center,
you don't have to worry about all this
because they're gonna be carrying varieties
that are suited to your area anyway.
Most modern blueberry varieties are self fertile.
They're self pollinating.
This variety is self pollinating.
And that just means that they don't need another plant
to cross pollinate with in order to bear fruit.
Some varieties do require cross pollination,
which means that they require
that you get a different variety of blueberry plant
and plant them next to each other.
So that's something to look out for,
especially if you're a balcony gardener
and you just want one plant,
make sure that you're getting one that is self fertile
because the more cross pollination you have,
the bigger your harvest are going to be,
the more fruit you're going to get.
Now that we know how to choose a variety,
let's talk about when you should plant them.
We've basically got two prime times
for planting blueberries.
We've got spring and we've got fall.
And I've planted at both of these times.
And I'm gonna say that fall is by far
my favorite time to plant them
because I just feel like
it gives you a little bit of a headstart.
Right now, it's mid-November, and in my zone,
it's still the perfect time to plant blueberries
because we haven't had any really hard freezes yet.
Our soil is still very loose, it's very workable,
and it'll probably be that way well into December.
Planting in the fall allows your plant
to establish a really good root system
right before it goes into that winter dormancy.
It goes ahead and gets those chill hours
that it needs outta the way,
and it will be ready to rock and roll come springtime
when the plant regrows all of its foliage
and it blooms and starts creating those berries.
Blueberries are long lived perennials.
So with each passing year, as your plant matures,
you're gonna get bigger and better harvest every year.
To explain to you how containers
became my preferred method of growing blueberries,
I have to tell you a story about a funeral that I had
for four blueberry plants.
This was my very first year of gardening.
I'd never grown blueberries before
and I tried to grow them in the ground.
And let's just say they passed very quickly.
I was devastated. I was heartbroken.
And most of all, I was really confused
'cause I had no idea what happened.
And back in my beginner gardening days,
I had absolutely no idea
that blueberries thrive in an acidic soil.
They prefer a soil pH of 4.5 to five,
and that very specific pH
can be very hard to obtain and control
in an in-ground environment.
I ended up going to the hardware store.
I picked up an at-home soil test kit,
and I tested the soil and the soil was actually alkaline.
So those blueberries were definitely not happy at all.
And unfortunately before I realized what was going on,
it was too late.
And I opted to try to grow my blueberries
in containers this time.
I picked up some more blueberries,
some large terracotta pots,
some organic potting soil, some compost,
and I got some soil acidifier.
This way I had total control over the soil
that my blueberries were growing in.
And it worked.
I got a bumper crop the next year.
I was so happy, I was over the moon.
And it's really what made me fall in love
with growing not only my blueberries,
but fruit trees and other fruit bushes in containers.
But I still made a tiny mistake
in choosing the right containers,
which would eventually cause another blueberry tragedy
the next year.
These terracotta pots that I chose were much too small.
I mean, this is like a five gallon container if that.
And while it did okay
the first season that the plants were in there,
got lots of berries,
As the next season came around,
they started to quickly decline and it got zero berries.
Terracotta is a porous material that very quickly dries out,
especially in the southern heat.
And at first I could get away with watering these
every few days or so.
But the problem came
when the plants started growing more and more.
They very quickly became root bound
in these really small containers.
And when a plant becomes root bound,
this happens because the pot is too small
and the roots keep growing and growing
and they run out of room
so they just start wrapping around
and around and around in the pot.
And this can actually start to make your plants hydrophobic
because the roots are taking up all of the room.
There's little to no soil left,
and what soil is left is really compacted.
And so it starts to not hold water well at all.
And eventually your plant really starts to suffer
because it's not getting enough water.
It doesn't have the space that it needs to grow
and they'll die.
And that's what happened to a few of my blueberry plants.
I was able to save some of them
by re-potting them in the right container.
So today we're gonna plant a few blueberries
and I'm gonna show you what I learned
and how to choose the right container.
When you're choosing a container for blueberries,
you wanna go for something that is fairly large,
'cause keep in mind, this is a perennial
that can live for over 50 years,
so it needs all the space that it can get.
So we're gonna go with something that is 20 gallons,
at least, at the very least.
And don't forget to keep those varieties in mind
because while you can grow
any variety of blueberry in a container that you want,
it's always best to go for those
container specific varieties
because they have been bred over time
to perform well in containers.
So that's always better if you can get your hands on some.
I'm gonna be using these 20 gallon lined grow bags
from epic gardening.
And I have become a huge, huge fan
of growing pretty much anything in grow bags
because they have this permeable fabric
which allows the plant to breathe
and allows for better water drainage,
but they're also lined with this extra material
that keeps the moisture in at the same time,
but not too much.
And these bags allow your plants to air prune,
meaning when the roots grow
and they reach the edge of this bag,
they just prune themselves off
instead of becoming root bound
and wrapping around and around and around.
And that makes for a much, much healthier plant.
We're just gonna fill this grow back up
with this organic potting soil.
This is a locally made potting soil that I really like.
And then I'm gonna add in a bit of compost as well,
just for a little boost.
Most fruit trees or bushes
really enjoy a healthy dose of compost at least once a year.
Then we're just gonna plant our blueberry.
Then we're gonna add in some soil acidifier
to bring that pH down.
And this is organic
and it's made for acid loving plants
like blueberries and hydrangeas.
And you just follow the package instructions
to make the the proper amendment.
And it's gonna bring that pH down
to the acidity that blueberries love.
I'm gonna top it with some mulch.
I love a good wheat straw mulch, but any mulch will work.
We just wanna make sure that we're giving it
a nice two to three inch layer
so the soil will stay cozy over the winter.
And it's done, easy.
You might want to pick up an at-home soil testing kit
and just test the soil every once in a while
just to make sure that the pH
remains at the preferred level of blueberries.
You can always use more of that soil acidifier if necessary.
You might also wanna consider
a raised bed for your blueberries,
which still counts as a container.
And here's some that I planted earlier this fall
in this patio birdie's bed.
This is a great idea if you have some more space.
I also really like the look of these berries in here.
I feel like it's kind of elevating my patio a little bit.
I've also made sure to add some irrigation to my patio,
and most of my containers
have a little drip line going to them.
And another thing I really like about these grow bags
is that they come with this little sleeve on the side
that you can put your drip line through to hold it in place
and to kind of hide it as well.
Blueberries need about an inch of water per week,
whether you're hand watering
or you're using drip irrigation,
but they like to stay consistently moist.
They don't like to dry completely out,
but they don't like to be sopping wet either.
So you just kind of have to play around a little bit
and find that right balance of watering.
And it really depends on
what kind of drip system you have going on.
But for instance, I run my entire container garden drip
for about 10 minutes every day in the peak of the summer.
And that seemed to really work well for me last year.
Blueberries also love sunlight.
They can tolerate part shade,
but they really prefer more full sun
about six to eight hours per day.
And blueberries are deciduous.
So if your blueberry drops all of its leaves,
don't freak out.
It's totally and completely normal.
The leaves of your blueberry plants
will start to change color
with the rest of the leaves in the fall,
like you see this one doing here.
This one actually has some really pretty,
really beautiful coloring going on over here.
They're actually really pretty bushes in the fall,
and it'll eventually drop all of these leaves
with the rest of the deciduous trees.
So just nothing to be alarmed about.
In very early spring,
right before these leaves start to grow back,
that's when I like to fertilize.
And blueberries really only need fertilizing
once a year in the spring.
I really like to use an organic fruit tree fertilizer,
like Espoma has one called Berry-tone.
I really like that one.
Some compost would work nicely as well.
I always like to add some compost in the spring.
And then the plants will come out of their winter slumber.
They'll start to grow those leaves back.
They'll start butting up.
Then they'll flour and form those berries.
And usually the harvest window for blueberries
is anywhere between April and September.
It really just depends on what variety you plant.
Some are early bloomers, some are late bloomers.
And you'll know your blueberries are ready to harvest
when they've swelled up
and they've developed that really deep blue color
that we all know and love.
And they'll go from being very firm
to just a little bit squishy.
But you don't wanna let them get too squishy
because that's a little bit over ripe.
But they'll also be very fragrant
and they'll just kind of pull off the plant very easily.
That's how you know when they're ready to harvest.
Blueberries do have some pest to look out for.
And in my experience, the main pest is birds.
Birds love, love blueberries,
and sometimes they can just gobble up
every single blueberry before you even get a chance.
But there are a few things you can do to deter them.
The first one is bird netting.
This just kind of creates a physical barrier
between your blueberries and the birds,
and that seems to work well for a lot of people.
I've tried this method
and I definitely have had my issues with birds,
and I found that bird netting didn't really help that much.
This is what I like to do,
and this is what has pretty much protected
my entire garden from birds.
I just feed them.
I have multiple bird feeders set up
throughout my entire property.
I put most of them in the front yard.
So basically, instead of going to battle with the birds,
I just kind of gave into their antics
and started to spoil them and keep them constantly fed.
So I really hope that me sharing my failures with you
has given you some valuable insight
and you feel prepped and ready to grow
the most amazing blueberries in containers next year.
- So if you haven't grown container blueberries, guys,
I actually think you're really missing out.
They are so delicious, so nutritious,
and really so productive
once you understand how to grow them successfully.
Thanks again to Bushel and Berry for sponsoring this video.
If you want some container berry tips
that include more than just blueberries,
check this video out right here.
Good luck in the garden, and keep on growing.