Managing a backyard blueberry patch Although sadly, I’ve moved, for five years I enjoyed a glorious backyard blueberry patch. It was lightly cultivated but I think that cultivation was well worth it in terms of production. I think the low hanging fruit in terms of easy cultivation for my patch was, weed whacking the alders and willows and large trees and pruning the bushes with hedge shears (every other year). Other things that I think would contribute to success and would be easy to do are getting bees. I also had chickens for awhile and they went crazy over the blueberries. They contributed a little of fertilizer, but I usually tried to coral them into the garden so that they wouldn’t eat too many blueberries. I’m curious how some of these more intensive cultivation methods used in Maine for example, would work Yarbororough, 2013). Specifically, how many pounds of bog blueberries could be produced on one acre? But then you’d sacrifice the organic nature of our wild blueberry stands. And also, with so many free blueberries on public lands, would it be worth it? I think it is for the easy methods but not sure about irrigation, fertilization, ect. I find it interesting that they call these wild blueberries in Maine with such intensive cultivation? Yarborough, D. 2013. Production-Improving your wild blueberry yields. Cooperative Extension: Maine Wild Blueberries. The University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469. Revised March 2013.
HR Fairbanks
HortAlaska Berries 