Growing Blueberries

Immature blueberries.

Blueberries are all the rage for home gardens.  They are a great fruit to try as the plants are just small shrubs and there is a huge selection of varieties that will grow  in just about any climate or growing zone.

My row of blueberry plants.

I have four different varieties growing in my garden.  Planting multiple varieties not only helps with pollination but will also give you a staggered harvest rather than getting a lump all at once.  All blueberry plants like well draining soil that is on the acidic side but there are quite a few varieties out there that have been bred to adapt better to alkaline soils.  Below are some photos of some of my blueberry plants. 

This is a a very compact variety of blueberry known as 'Top Hat'.  As you can see, it is loaded with flowers!

This is 'Blue Jay', a standard variety.

'Pink Lemonade', the blueberry that produces pink berries.

'Pink Lemonade' is a variety of blueberry that was bred to produce pink berries.  My small plant did not produce any flowers this year so I will not get to have any of these curiousities in my yogurt.  However, I have had the opportunity to taste them.  Everyone I have talked to says something different but, in my opinion, they taste no different than a regular blue blueberry. 

Bird netting attached to the deck with push pins and held up with sticks!

I have just recently put up some bird netting over the row of blueberry plants in an effort to keep the birds from eating my entire crop (which is what happened last year, 2010).  This is a good idea if you live at a location where there are a lot of birds that frequent your garden for insects and other tasty morsels. 

For more information on 'Pink Lemonade', visit my company's website:  Briggs Plant Propagators
Here are a couple of links of where to purchase 'Pink Lemonade':  Burpee and Unique Plant Shop

For more information on how to keep birds from eating your blueberries:
How to protect blueberries from birds.

Next post:  Growing Strawberries

Planting Corn

Ruby Queen Sweet Corn by Burpee

A moment of honesty:  I have never grown corn before.  This is the first time that I will try to grow corn from seed and hopefully get something from it.  If I do not get any ears, at least I will have decorative dried cornstalks to use as decoration in the fall!  Staying true to my love for unusually colored vegetables, I will be attempting to grow Ruby Queen sweet corn which is a Burpee introduction.  It is supposed to be harvestable after 75 days which means it is a short season variety.  I have always wanted to try to grow this type of sweet corn, mainly because I was highly attracted to the color.  Burpee introduced this variety in their catalog a few years ago and I was happy to see that Walmart carried it in their seed selection.  If I succeed, this corn will definitely put me in a place of high esteem among the gardening community.  Even when I bought the seed at the Walmart checkstand the woman helping me asked if I had ever grown this corn before.  I told her "No, this will be the first time."  She then told me to come back and tell her how it grows if I have success.  That little conversation was enough of a boost to drive me to take on the challenge!

The red kernels.

 As you can see from the photo above, the kernels are a  beautiful red.  According to the seed packet, the corn starts out as a blush red and then matures to a darker red.  I will want to harvest my corn for eating when it appears blush red and will let a few ears mature to dark for decoration and to save as seed for next year's crop, that is, if I like the corn and want to try it again.

Corn planted in 12 spots in three rows.

Using the remaining open area of my vegetable garden bed, I dug up 12 holes and loosened the soil up.  After removing more large rocks and ensuring that the weeds were also removed from the holes, I planted 3 kernels per hole.  The seed packet suggested to make rows rather than holes but I don't have that much space and this is also more of an experiment than anything else.  I chose to plant 3 kernels per hole just in the hopes that something will emerge and the more I plant, the higher the chance of success becomes.  Corn kernels are very dehydrated so I will be watering the kernels once a day while this sudden dry weather is upon us here in Western Washington. 

Recap:  Planted Ruby Queen Sweet Corn on June 15, 2011.  Ears are harvestable in 75 days.
Next post:  Growing Blueberries.

Bell Pepper Update

Potting up individual pepper plants into thier own pots.

 On June 14, 2011, I went ahead and potted up the individual pepper plants that had been growing together in three pots for a month.  Two of the pots had five plants and one had four making my total count come to 14 pepper plants. 


Larger plants went with the basil plants to begin acclimating outside during the day.

 After transplanting, I separated the larger plants form the small ones.  The larger plants will begin the acclimatization process along with the basil plants.  I will plant the peppers in the ground at the end of June.

Smaller plants.

The smaller pepper plants will be kept inside under the grow light in an attempt to grow them up before acclimatization and then planting outside.






Next post:  Planting Corn

How to make an upside down tomato container

All you really need is a bucket with a hole punched out, a paper towel, a tomato plant, and some potting soil.

 If you don't want to shell out money for a Topsy Turvey, it is actually quite easy to make an upside down tomato container of your own with a few things that you may already have around the house.

Carefully thread the tomato plant through the paper towel and hole through the bucket. 

 The first step is to take the paper towel and rip a hole in it.  Carefully thread the tomato plant through the paper towel and then through the hole in the bucket.  The paper towel will help prevent soil from pouring out of the hole and will also help keep the tomato plant in place.

Use chairs or some other way to hold the bucket up if you do not have a helper to hold it up.  The last thing you want is a damaged tomato plant.

 Add the potting soil while the bucket is right side up.  Use a helper or chairs to hold up the bucket so that the tomato plant does not get damaged while the soil is added.

Bucket in place!

 The last step is to water the plant.  You can do this while the bucket is still on the ground or after it is hung up.  Make sure to water it well.  At this point, the excess water will run out through the hole.  This is how it will be and will not affect the tomato plant.  The paper towel will help keep the soil from running out with the water until the tomato plant's stem grows larger and eventually fills the hole.

Use 5 gallon plastic pots as tomato containers.

 Another method is to take black plastic pots that are of 3 or 5 gallon size and make them into hanging containers.  All that needs to be done is to make hanging attachments and punch out a hole for the plants to be threaded through.

Strings attached to hang container.



Tomato plant threaded through container.




Containers being hung up.




Potting soil added to each container.




Watering.




Finished!

 Any type of tomato plant will work in an upside down container.  The important thing to remember is to water the plants more often than upright grown tomato plants in containers.  Because the water is running out next to the stem and the roots are at the top of the container, the roots will dry out much faster.  Another tip is to hang the tomato container in a location where it will receive at least 8 hours of sunlight and to give it an application of water soluable fertilizer such as Miracle-Gro once a week. 

For more information, check out:  How to make an upside down tomato planter

Next post:  Bell Pepper Update.

Tomatoes Planted

Although a few days later than what I originally planned, I was able to plant my tomatoes today!

 I cut into the black tarp with scissors to make a cross which I then pulled apart to dig out the soil.

 Before planting, I removed the lower leaves from the stem.  Tomatoes have the ability to sprout roots from the stem and removing the leaves will help encourage this growth.  I will cover the stem with soil all the way up to where my fingers are holding the plant. The more roots a tomato plant has, the better the plant will grow.

The first tomato plant planted in soil.

All the rest planted and watered. 

If the weather continues to improve, the plants should take off nicely.  I noticed that a few already had flower buds emerging.  This doesn't necessarily mean that they will form fruit, but is a sign that the plants are reaching maturity.

Next post:  Making your own upside down tomato pot.

At long last Sun has arrived!

A sunflower from last year's garden (2010).

 After a very dissapointing week and a half, the sun has finally come out again!  I had been planning on planting my sunflower seeds on May 31, 2011, but that did not happen on account of it being 55 degrees and raining.  Fortunately, the sun came out today and I accomplished some planting.

The seeds I'm planting this year (2011).  Mammoth Grey Stripe and Red Sun, both Ed Hume Seeds.

 I chose to plant two varieties: Mammoth Grey Stripe, which is the classic 10 foot tall sunflower with the huge yellow head, and Red Sun, which is a smaller variety that comes in shades of orange to dark red. 

Note the difference in seed size.  The larger seed are the Mammoth Grey Stripe while the smaller are the Red Sun variety.

 I dug up the soil along the back of my vegetable garden bed next to the rail road ties and removed any weeds that had sprouted since the last weeding.

I planted the seed in the row with one Grey Stripe seed to every five Red Sun seed since there were less of the Grey Stripe seeds and they will grow larger and taller anyway.  I lightly covered the seed with a quarter inch of soil, watered the row with my watering can, and then applied a layer of Corry's Slug and Snail Death to keep the sunflower seedlings protected when they begin to emerge.  Sunflowers seedlings are slug magnets and I have lost many seedlings to slugs over the years because I didn't protect them soon enough.  Slugs will even take down a four inch sunflower plant if given the chance.  So, if the weather prediction is correct, I should see germination in the next week! 

Next post:  Planting the tomato plants in the garden.

For more information on growing sunflowers go to:  Growing Sunflowers