Photo Credit: Sheryl Westleigh

Planting a tree is great but when it comes to family time ROI for yard work nothing can beat a few blueberry bushes. Here are a few tips to make it as painless as possible.

Picking

There are many varieties to choose from but the key is to select a few varieties that bear fruit at different times of the summer.  There are plenty of local garden centers to choose from but we also like to order from Johnny’s Selected Seeds online, where you can get a pack of 3 different varieties of 18 month old plants designed to keep you in berries all summer long.

Planting

Dig a hole twice as wide and twice as deep as the root ball. Place a mixture of two parts loam to one part compost in the bottom of the whole, place the plant in the whole, and pack the entire plant firmly with soil. Done and done.

Protecting

Birds like blueberries, there’s no way around it.  You need to decide what kind of relationship you want to have with them. You could construct a wooden frame around the plants and attach netting to the frame to keep all the birds away from your precious little berries. Of course, with all that free time the birds may decide to take out their blueberry jones on your car windshield. Or, seeing as how it’s Earth Day, you could just let the birds have a couple blueberries. Plus, during
the summer your kids can chase the birds while you sip a blueberry infused vodka lemonade.

Don’t Have a Yard?

No problem. As long as you have a patio, porch, front stoop, or really any place that gets good light, you can plant a few dwarf blueberry bushes in pots. The Dwarf Tophat Blueberry never breaks 1½’ but bears hundreds of berries every year.