Available at Home Depot for $4.97 per plant. At Northern California stores:
Blueberries, Bababerries, Boysenberries, Raspberries, Grapes, etc.

I found Misty and Sharpblue Southern High Bush blueberries to be of good quality, at par as those from Capitol nursery that are sold for $18, but only $4.97 at HD! You will get good selection if you get there early.

I grow a couple acres of grapes, a 100-ft row of raspberries, had a 100 foot row of boysenberries but plowed them under as I did not like the taste of them much. I REALLY like blueberries, but have a very hard time growing them as Colorado's soil is quite alkaline, and blueberries require an acid soil. I wonder if I dig in tons of peat moss, if they will grow. - Millet

That's where you should apply about 1/4 lb of soil sulfur per square ft, incorporate with peat moss, then use 450 ppm nitrogen in the form of ammonium sulfate every time you water, and supplement with iron sulfate every month. Before I started, my soil pH was about 8.8 and the city water pH is 8.6 and yet I get plenty of blueberries.

I don't know if you have much pine straw out there, but blueberries love pine straw mulch and that will help acidify the soil as well. I have about 50 blueberry bushes --over 20 varieties selected to give me fresh berries from April thru August.

Blueberries are one of the things I really missed when I moved from Kansas City to San Diego. We loved to go to the u-pick blueberry patch and load up. Fortunately, I found a couple of varieties that don't have the chill requirements that the others do. O'neil is one of them, but I can't remember the other. I think it was Sunshine. I didn't realize it but the Sunshine was an evergreen. For both of them, I mixed in peat and sulfur into the native soil and they seem to be doing well. With only two plants though, I don't get nearly as many blueberries as I would like.

One thing I also noticed at Home Depot was that they had great deals on other bare root fruit trees. I went to Lowes the same day and their trees were a lot more. Too bad I'm all out of real estate in my yard for any more non-citrus trees.

Phillip

Skeeter - how many acres do you have 100 - 200, where do you grow all these plant, you are a berryaholic for sure!

Joe, 450 PPM Nitrogen from Ammonium Sulfate seems like a lot of nitrogen to apply with every irrigation. I take it you have been doing this amount of nitrogen with out any problems. - Millet

Yes Millet. But if your blueberries are partly shaded, you have to reduce the amount to a third. You can try various concentration, perhaps start out using 300 ppm. My purpose of using ammonium sulfate is mainly for maintenance acidification and not nutrition, as it has very good acidifying effect on our city's alkaline water. This also means I apply water in slight excess to drain the excess N. The excess N didn't go to waste as my drainage pipe empties them to some of my citruses and finally to my persimmons, and I don't fertilize them that much. My blueberry plot is slightly elevated to help the acidification and drainage process. It could be more trouble for you though, but for a hobbyist, that is one challenge that I overcame, growing blueberries in alkaline soil fed with alkaline water, and a more expensive way of growing them, unlike Skeeter whose soil are naturally acidic.

Sunrise, I only have an acre of land over in AL and about 1/2 acre lot here in Pensacola. Most of my blueberries are over in AL, but that land is much too wet for citrus. I do have 10 varieties in the back yard.

Phillip, As for low chill varieties, pretty much all of mine are low chill. I have mostly rabbiteye, but about 1/3 are southern highbush. O'neil is one of the early varieties I have like Misty. I also have Bladen, Baldwin, Becky Blue, Brite Blue, Bonita, Choice, Climax, Cape Fear, Delite, Gulf Coast, Premier, Tifblue, Arlen --those are the ones I can remember. I also have one BlueCrop that is suppose to be a Northern highbush, but I got berries on it last year.

I tended a U-Pick berry patch last summer (just met people there to let the in, weight up and pay). The patch is real close to my place on the river in AL. You would not believe the berries on those bushes! Mid to late July, I could pick about 30#/hr! I sold over 500 # of berries I picked and other people picked almost 3000 #, but there must have been 10,000 # of berries that fell on the ground.

Yes, Phillip, what a waste! I made 2-6 gal batches of blueberry wine and have enough in the freezer for a couple more. I haven't tried blueberry juice, but may give that a try-- I have a juicer. Do you make your own?

I actually shipped 3 batches of about 5-8 # to my son in MD using the USPS flat rate boxes. The first 2 were great but the last one the berries were too ripe and got mushy.

we used to have like 8 blueberry bushes at the house where my dad grew up. we since sold the house and now i'm attempting to start a patch of blueberries in my backyard. I built a wooden support cage which i cover with anti-bird netting and wrap the bottom in chicken wire to keep other animals out. It also helps to have a great hunting cat and his brother next door.