How to grow blueberries from seeds at home: planting and care rules

Blueberries - rich in vitamins and microelements, wild berries are especially useful for vision. Excellent taste with low calorie content has become a godsend for nutritionists, blueberry jam, muffins and blueberry rolls are liked by sweet tooth all over the world. The berry has long been used in folk medicine. Information on how to grow blueberries from seeds in a summer cottage will certainly come in handy for beginner gardeners.

Advantages and disadvantages of growing from seed

Garden blueberries are easy to grow from seed, even frozen berries can be used. Of course, this is a complicated matter, but fruit-bearing bushes will certainly please gardeners.

Planting blueberries from seed has a number of benefits:

• you can use supermarket frozen blueberry seeds;
• 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 the "wild" relatives.

The disadvantages of such reproduction are:

• if the seeds are taken from wild berries, they will not take root in the garden;
• even with good care, the seeds do not germinate together, grow slowly;
• planted in open ground in the second year after germination.

For good growth, bushes need light acidic soil, this is a prerequisite, otherwise the planting will not take root.

Choosing blueberry variety

When choosing seeds for planting in the country, you should know that wild berry bushes are undersized, they do not grow more than 50-80 centimeters.

Garden berry bushes can be short, medium and tall.

1. Low grades include: Sunrise, Erliblu, Kovil.
2. Mid-sized are: Jersey, Herbert, Nelson.
3. 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 the seeds for sowing are selected independently, it is better to take the largest frozen blueberries bought in the supermarket. Freezing is, in fact, stratification for seeds.

Seeds purchased from authorized sellers are fully prepared for sowing. Berries should be well kneaded and pour water. The best seeds, which are the heaviest, will sink to the bottom. The water must be drained several times to get rid of the berry pulp.

Seeds can be laid out on filter paper for drying, and then the required amount of planting material is torn off and placed in the ground along with the paper. They are very small; if you do not want to use paper, you can use a toothpick for planting.

In this case, the seeds are sown in a pot or a special container. Seedlings germinate 2-3 weeks after sowing seeds. Growing blueberries from seeds in a pot is time-consuming, but it is a lot of fun.

The second way to plant a plant in the area with seeds: a few fresh blueberries are buried in the chosen place in the garden.

In this case, the appearance of strong, friendly shoots for the next year is difficult to expect, but since the method is very simple, it makes sense to try, especially since blueberry bushes are a decoration of the landscape.

Date of planting

Bilberry seeds are planted in a pot in autumn. After the emergence of seedlings, the container with the plant is taken out to a bright and cool room (a closed veranda or summer kitchen is suitable) with a temperature of + 5-8 ° C. In spring, pots with a 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 a special cloth.

It begins to bear fruit at the age of 3, gives good yields for 20-30 years.

Substrate preparation and sowing

For planting, take equal parts of peat, river sand and fallen needles.The berry grows only on light acidic soils. Soil pH - 3.8-5. The plant needs slightly shaded conditions. Seeds should not be buried deep, plants love moisture, but cannot stand overflow. To keep the soil acidic, it is necessary to water the soil once a month with acidified water (use acetic or citric acid).

If you can not prepare the soil yourself, you can use ready-made soil for azalea, it is sour and suitable for blueberries. The seed container is covered with a film, which is periodically removed to ventilate the seedlings, and moisten the soil with a spray bottle.

Transfer to a permanent place

For planting berry bushes, dig holes 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 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 along with the soil from the pot, it does not need to be shaken off the roots. The soil is compacted. The basal neck should be covered, the plant is watered abundantly, bringing a bucket of water to each bush.

When planting in autumn, the plant must be covered for the winter, because in our latitudes it does not have time to adapt to new conditions and grow stronger.

Important: the plant does not tolerate organic fertilizers.

Do not plant blueberries in the shade, they will not bear fruit, only lightly shaded areas are best for her.

Caring for blueberries

The plant is capricious, therefore it requires careful care, weeding, watering, regular acidification of the soil.

Water, weed, mulch

The soil under blueberry bushes should be slightly damp, excess moisture leads to disease and death of the plant.

Plantings are periodically weeded, the soil under the bushes is mulched with sawdust or needles. Weeding bushes should be done carefully, in blueberries the roots are located close to the surface of the soil, they are easily damaged when loosening the soil or removing weeds.

Fertilization

When the acidity of the soil is low, citric or acetic acid must be added to the soil. The plant needs mineral fertilizers. Azofoska, complex potassium-phosphorus compounds are used. The first time fertilizers are applied in early spring, then at the end of May, the last time they are fertilized in the first decade of July. Once every 3-4 years, plants can be fed with compost or peat chips. When a plant suffers from a lack of fertilizer, the yield decreases, the berries and leaves become smaller.

Pruning bushes

Sanitary pruning of bushes is carried out from 3-4 years. Remove damaged, withered branches, get rid of side shoots.

The ripened berry is stored fresh and frozen for a long time, preserving the taste and useful substances with which it is rich. Garden blueberries are completely identical to forest blueberries in their properties, so more and more gardeners are striving to grow them in their own summer cottage.

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