Grow your own - Blueberries

While the pretty spring flowers and the tasty berries of Vaccinium Corymbosum are well and truly over by this time of the year, the Blueberries’ recent final fling of wonderful autumn colours gave an added reason to think about finding them a place in the garden.

As the winter months draw near, now is the time to think of planting new bushes.

One of the first foods to be titled a ‘superfood’, and expensive to buy in the shops, homegrown Blueberries ripen over a long period of time. Any surplus is very easy to freeze successfully - just put them in a bag in the freezer thus keeping a good harvest going even longer. So, in my book, Blueberries are the number one fruit for ‘growing your own’. Remarkably trouble-free, the only difficulty I have found is keeping the birds off. Unsurprisingly, just like us, they love Blueberries.

Googling information on how to grow Blueberries, I see that acid soil is recommended but my plants have grown very well in my heavy Wealden clay with a little compost in the planting hole. If in doubt, they can be planted in a large container with ericaceous compost. Watering with rainwater is also advised to keep the pH level low and I do follow that advice.

I spent my childhood on Pennine moorland, where tiny wild bilberries grew. It would take the whole family what seemed to be hours foraging enough for a delicious bilberry pie. So, here in Marden, to be able to go into the garden during the summer and grab a handful of big juicy Blueberries off the bush is a never-ending pleasure.

For more information on growing Blueberries here are the RHS recommendations.