blueberries

Weve bought a couple of blueberry bushes with the original plan of planting them in the garden , but since we bought them Ive read that they need acidic soil , and ive done a soil test today and its showing neutral to alkaline



in order of N,P,K and Ph
All the other result look good to me just the soil is to alkaline for the blueberries

Whats the best option ? - one of my thoughts was to cut an oil drum in half and bury this in the position we were going to plant it fill it with ericaceous compost then plant the blueberry in it ?

will this work ?

 

I have neutral soil all round my garden and have found it best to just stick them in pots of ericaceous compost. I think a few people dig a big hole and then fill it with ericaceous compost and then top it up with a bark mulch.

 

problem we have with pot is they dry out iif we go away - and we haven't got anywhere to put them - hence basicly the idea o burying them

I take it sulphur chips would be a waste of time

 

There are solutions to this problem.

Firstly, you can buy ready made self watering containers. I've never tried them myself, but I like the concept. Basically they have a reservoir of water in the bottom, and the soil is held just above this such that it draws water up from the reservoir by either osmosis or surface tension or some such magic.

Or you could have a go at making your own. I found an article that shows how:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/self-watering-container-ze0z11zhir.aspx

Or you could mix some water retaining crystals into the compost, and a good mulch on the surface to slow down loss through evaporation.

Depending on how long you go away for and how hot or windy (or worse, both at the same time) it gets, you can simply get away with giving them a good soak before you go, and if they are in a large enough container such that the soil/compost volume is as it ought to be, then they'll do fine for a week or even two, in average weather (wont work in a heat wave).

As blueberries are native to ground that is prone water-logging, you can stand the container in a tray filled with water and no harm will come to the blueberry bush.

Or you can get those slow release watering jobbies. In essence, they are just a bottle but the neck is a spike. You fill them with water and then shove them into the compost. The water will then slowly leak out into the compost. It wont come out in one go because once the compost at the outlet reaches saturation point, it wont allow more water to pass. Or you could have a go at making your own one.