Blueberries Offer Edible Landscaping

If you have a small piece of property and would like to cultivate an easy-to-grow fruit, try blueberries.

Blueberries are high in vitamins, and researchers from the USDA found that blueberries have more antioxidants than 40 other tested common fruits and vegetables.

They are also one of the easiest fruits to grow, and one of the most widely grown in the United States, according to the University of Maryland Extension Service.

Blueberry plants make a great hedge for screening, can be clustered in the landscape or just used singly. They are attractive and have great fall color, soft yellow blossoms in the late spring and attractive blue fruit in the summer. 

Blueberries prefer sunny locations but will also thrive in partly sunny spots. Hemlocks shade my five plants during the day, and I still pick quarts and quarts of them. A fully mature bush can produce up to 10 pounds of fruit, so they are well worth growing.

The only special requirement blueberries demand is a very acidic soil of 4.8 to 5.5 pH. It is a good idea to test your soil before planting and amend it with peat moss, compost and sulfur at least three to four months before planting to lower the pH if necessary. Plant the bushes four to four-and-a-half feet apart, and keep them well-watered the first year after planting. Mulching with pine needles also helps with lowering the acidity—I put on a new coating every year. Other than that, there is no special care required. No pesticides are needed, which makes blueberries very easy to grow organically.

Birds will pick off the ripe berries, but you can place netting over the bushes to avoid losing part of your harvest. I get so much fruit that I really don't care if the birds have a little feast. Not to mention, draping the bushes with nets and pulling them off every time I want to harvest is just too much trouble for me.    

If you want a long season of picking, check out the ripening times before selecting your plants.

You want ones that will produce early, mid-season and late to extend your harvest. During the summer, I will start picking the second week of June and continue up to August, ending up with about eight weeks of fresh blueberries to put on my cereal. I freeze quarts of them and use them all winter long. I just finished up my last bag of frozen berries from last year with a blueberry pie.

The only downside to growing blueberries is picking them. They have to be picked individually and it can take some time. I usually grab a bowl and head out to the bushes in the early morning when it is still cool and I have some quiet time.

To make things more fun, plan a blueberry harvest party and invite friends over to pick together and cook them up in different recipes. I use them for desserts, sauces for meats, salad dressings and drinks. Be inventive—the possibilities are endless.