Let us get one thing straight: I've never managed to keep a blueberry bush alive for more than four months. Or possibly 10, but I didn't happen to look at it for five of those months, which may be one reason my blueberry bushes die: neglect. The plants that truly flourish in our garden all thrive on benign neglect. I'm an expert in how not to grow blueberries.
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Blueberries need two more things that they are unlikely to get here: regular reliable watering and mulching so they stay free from weeds.
Blueberries were originally a wild crop, growing in cold swamps in northern America and Europe. We have plenty of cold here in winter, but we also have summers hot enough to sunscald the apples and to either send humans down to the creek or inside, blessing our ancestors who invented sun-shielding houses and insulation.
If you want to grow blueberries, grow them near a tap or just beside the front door where you'll water them every time you clean out the coffee pot. Better still, install drip irrigation. Unless of course, you're the dedicated gardening type who not only waters regularly but organises a garden guardian who will water when you go on summer holidays.
Blueberry bushes need lots of water. The fruit itself doesn't. If the fruit gets too wet too often it will rot, or the leaves will become mildewed. Again, think "swamp" – wet feet, dry tops, but not stagnant water, either.
The third thing blueberries love is sun – scarce in our shadowed garden but plentiful on many patios. The trouble is that most patios don't resemble swamps. They're more like a patch of the Sahara Desert. Don't grow your blueberries in pots unless you water every day or install irrigation and add mulch and water-retaining crystals too, as well as repotting into new soil at least every three years.
Blueberries also need slightly acidic soil, so don't lime them or plant them too close to concrete paths or footings. Give lots of organic matter. Mulch your blueberry bushes twice a year, whether they are in pots or not. Scatter good organic fertiliser in late winter and again after the fruit has set. You should also give them rock phosphate the first year, and then every three years afterwards, but check the label on your fertiliser – if it's rich in phosphorous you won't need to give them extra.
Blueberries also need trace elements like copper, iron and magnesium, but a good rich mulch like lucerne may supply these as it breaks down.
Out in the garden, space the plants between one and three metres apart, depending on how big the label says your bush will grow, though commercial bushes are planted closer and thinned later. Plant them when they're dormant, or in pots at any time of the year.
Prune the young plants heavily to encourage bushy growth: cut away any weak growth, any frosted branches and any dense, low growth. Also, cut out wood more than three years old every year. Spray with Bordeaux or straight copper sulphate spray in midwinter in most areas, or in midwinter and at "bud burst", when the flowers are almost but not quite open, to control fungal disease in moist areas or wet years. By now, you have probably realised why my blueberry bushes die.
Blueberries will give some fruit when they are between two and six years old, but bigger, mature bushes, of course, produce much more fruit. A big bush yields from two to 10 kilograms of fruit. An avid blueberry eater, like me, needs about three large bushes to have all the blueberries they want, plus at least one or two more for fruit for friends.
Let the fruit ripen on the bush: it won't become sweeter after it has been picked. Leave for a few days after they become blue, for the richest, sweetest, sun-ripe flavour. The best way to tell when your crop is ready to pick is to taste often, which is not a hardship. Pick the fruit at least once a week. You'll find that the fruit in the clusters probably won't ripen evenly, so you'll need to selectively pick individual berries, rather than cut the clusters off.
Choose your varieties carefully, too. New varieties have been developed that will suit everything from frosty to subtropical climates. Some varieties need cross-pollination too, so choose two varieties that will pollinate each other. Other varieties, especially those bred for colder climates "self-pollinate" and you'll get fruit from only one bush. Some bushes grow up to one metre high, others grow up to three metres high and wide.
But there is one true certainty with blueberries. They are delicious, wonderfully good for you and it is impossible to grow too many. If you have a surplus, give the birds a treat. Or give them to someone with the "have no blueberry bushes blues". Like me.
This week I'm:
* not even thinking about planting out the broccoli or onion seedlings as this week and next week are work, leavened by more work and then a little different work;
* glad to have a generous garden that forgives neglect and gives me limes, avocados, tamarillos, vast amounts of parsley and silver beet and wombats to grin at and three young male lyrebirds chasing each other like cartoon road runners, dashing back and forth in front of my study, squawking and ludicrous;
* dreaming of an orderly garden where I'd have planted peas two months ago and now would be watching them blossom and fatten into pea pods;
* a garden where I'd be planting spring onions and early flat white onions and even more broccoli and bok choy; and
* picking hydrangeas and what I keep thinking are the last roses of summer but, as this autumn continues as if the weather had decided to stop progressing towards winter, there may be more roses, and then more still.
