Blueberries are a wild berry rich in vitamins and microelements, especially good for vision. Excellent taste with low calorie content has become a godsend for nutritionists; blueberry jam, muffins and rolls with blueberries are loved by sweet tooths all over the world. The berry has also been used in folk medicine for a long time. Information on how to grow blueberries from seeds at a summer cottage will certainly be useful to beginning gardeners.
Advantages and disadvantages of growing from seeds
Garden blueberries are easy to grow from seeds; you can even use frozen berries. Of course, this is a complicated matter, but fruit-bearing bushes will certainly delight gardeners.
Planting blueberries with seeds has a number of advantages:
- you can use the seeds of frozen blueberries purchased at the supermarket;
- American varieties of tall blueberries, the seeds of which can be purchased from us, practically do not get sick and are not attacked by pests;
- garden varieties grown from seeds give a good harvest and do not differ in chemical composition from their “wild” relatives.
The disadvantages of such reproduction are:
- if the seeds are taken from a wild berry, they will not take root in the garden plot;
- even with good care, the seeds do not germinate quickly and grow slowly;
- planted in open ground in the second year after germination.
For good growth, the bushes need light acidic soil, this is a prerequisite, otherwise the plantings will not take root.
Choosing a blueberry variety
When choosing seeds for planting in the country, you should know that wild berry bushes are low-growing, they do not grow more than 50-80 centimeters.
Garden berry bushes can be short, medium or tall.
- Low varieties include: Sunrise, Erliblue, Kovil.
- Medium-sized ones are: Jersey, Herbert, Nelson.
- Tall varieties, reaching 2 meters: North blue, Northland, Patriot, Bluestar 701, Toro.
All varieties tolerate frost well and are suitable for the Russian climate.
Preparing seeds for sowing
If you select the seeds for sowing yourself, it is better to take the largest frozen blueberries purchased in the supermarket. Freezing is essentially stratification for seeds.
Seeds purchased from trusted sellers are fully prepared for sowing. The berries should be mashed well and filled with water. The best seeds, which are the heaviest, will settle to the bottom. The water needs to be drained several times to get rid of the berry pulp.
The seeds can be spread out on filter paper to dry, and then the required amount of planting material can be torn off and placed in the ground along with the paper. They are very small; If you don’t want to use paper, you can use a toothpick for planting.
In this case, the seeds are sown in a pot or special container. Seedlings sprout 2-3 weeks after sowing the seeds. Growing blueberries from seeds in a pot takes a long time, but is a lot of fun.
The second way to plant a plant on a site with seeds: several fresh blueberries are buried in a selected place in the garden.
In this case, it is difficult to expect the appearance of strong, friendly shoots next year, but since the method is very simple, it makes sense to try, especially since blueberry bushes are a decoration of the landscape.
Landing dates
Blueberry seeds are planted in a pot in the fall. After germination, the container with the plant is taken out to a bright and cool room (an enclosed veranda or summer kitchen is suitable) with a temperature of +5-8 °C. In the spring, the pots with the plant are taken out into the air, and a homemade blueberry bush is planted in open ground with the onset of autumn or next spring.
Important: blueberries grow extremely slowly; The first year after planting, the plant must be covered for the winter with sawdust, spruce branches or special fabric.
It begins to bear fruit in the 3rd year and produces good harvests for 20-30 years.
Substrate preparation and sowing
For planting, take equal parts of peat, river sand and fallen pine needles. The berry grows only on light acidic soils. Soil pH - 3.8-5. The plant requires slightly shaded conditions. Seeds should not be planted deeply; plants love moisture, but cannot tolerate overwatering. To keep the soil acidic, you need to water the soil once a month with acidified water (use acetic or citric acid).
If you cannot prepare the soil yourself, you can use ready-made soil for azaleas; it is acidic and suitable for blueberries. The container with the seeds is covered with a film, which is periodically removed to ventilate the seedlings, and the soil is moistened with a spray bottle.
Transplantation to a permanent place
To plant berry bushes, holes are dug at a distance of at least a meter from each other, with a diameter of 60 centimeters and a depth of about 80 centimeters.
Gravel or expanded clay is placed at the bottom of the finished hole as a drainage layer. Next comes a layer of fallen pine needles, and then a mixture of sand, soil and peat. Then the soil is watered and allowed to settle. The plant should be planted in the hole together with the soil from the pot; it does not need to be shaken off the roots. The soil is compacted. The root collar should be covered, the plant should be watered abundantly, adding a bucket of water to each bush.
When planting in autumn, the plant must be covered for the winter, since in our latitudes it does not have time to adapt to new conditions and grow stronger.
Important: the plant does not tolerate organic fertilizers.
Blueberries should not be planted in the shade; they will not bear fruit; only slightly shaded areas suit them best.
Blueberry care
The plant is capricious, therefore it requires careful care, weeding, watering, and regular acidification of the soil.
Watering, weeding, mulching
The soil under blueberry bushes should be slightly moist; excess moisture leads to diseases and death of the plant.
The plantings are periodically weeded, and the soil under the bushes is mulched with sawdust or pine needles. Bushes should be weeded carefully; blueberry roots are located close to the soil surface and can be easily damaged when loosening the soil or removing weeds.
Fertilizer application
If the soil acidity is low, it is necessary to add citric or acetic acid to the soil. The plant needs mineral fertilizers. Azophoska and complex potassium-phosphorus compounds are used. Fertilizers are applied for the first time in early spring, then at the end of May, and for the last time in the first ten days of July. Once every 3-4 years, plants can be fed with compost or peat chips. When a plant suffers from a lack of fertilizers, the yield decreases, the berries and leaves become smaller.
Bush pruning
Sanitary pruning of bushes is carried out from 3-4 years. Remove damaged, dried branches, get rid of side shoots.
Ripe berries can be stored fresh or frozen for a long time, preserving the taste and nutrients in which they are rich. Garden blueberries are completely identical to forest blueberries in their properties, so more and more gardeners are trying to grow them in their own summer cottage.
