- Oh wow, what an absolutely special berry this is. (birds chirping) Look at these beautiful blueberries, and special, because not
only do they taste fantastic, but special because they are different to most other fruiting plants. They require special and
different growing conditions, which can make them, well, which can make them quite difficult for the average home grower to grow. And it can be very frustrating, but it needn't be scary to grow a blueberry, and if it doesn't go well, you shouldn't get the blues. G'day, I'm Mark from Self Sufficient Me, and in this video, I'm going to show you
how I grow blueberries in a raised garden bed, just like this. Let's, get into it. (light piano music)
(birds chirping) To be honest, I wasn't
gonna bring you this video until I'd finished eating
all these blueberries. Oh, mm, all at once like, half a dozen, mm, fantastic. No, seriously, I wasn't
gonna bring you this video, not because of that. No, because I wanted
to do some more testing on this blueberry raised garden bed first, before I bring you the full video. But then, I thought it'd be fair if I just let you know
how it's going so far, just in case you are on the verge of planting blueberries yourself, and you were looking
for some extra good tips on maybe how to grow them. Because like I said, they can be a little tricky. In my early days, I
thought that blueberries would be like any other plant. Plant them out into the garden like a regular fruit tree, and they should go okay. But then I realized after
several failed attempts, that the soil here just
wasn't suited to them. The blueberries would grow
okay for a little while, and then they would pretty much perish. Adding supplements and
organic fertilizers, pine needles, and organic matter that was higher in acidity didn't seem to make much difference to the growing conditions
or the health of the plants. So that's where I came up with the idea of growing 'em in a raised
round garden bed like this. And the main reason for it
was so that I could control exactly what type of soil or medium goes into that garden bed, knowing that the blueberries are going to love it from the get-go, rather than me trying to guess and modify and improve other existing soil types. So that was the main reason. The second reason was convenience. I like growing things
in raised garden beds, because it's convenient, waist high. And the third reason was, I also don't mind crowd growing. And I was thinking, probably against a lot
of the pros' opinions and, say, blueberry growers, what if we crowd grew several blueberry plants
together, different types? Could that improve the overall growth or fruiting of the plants
in a backyard environment? I'm not talking commercially here. I'm talking convenience
sake, better growing, longer harvesting, different varieties, increasing the production possibly, and making them just
overall easier to look after in the one spot like that. So as you can see, I've got these blueberries in
this round raised garden bed. It's around 750 to 800 mil
high or, 80 centimeters high. It's about 1.2 meters across, in diameter. So it's not that large. And I also, obviously, have this framework and
bird netting over the top. We'll get into why that's there. It's obvious why, but I'll
talk more about it later on. But firstly, how did
we start off with this, and what soil did we use so
that it was a good medium, or a perfect medium for these blueberries to get off to a great start in? Remember, these plants,
they're only 18 months old. I haven't had them for long. Mature plants are usually
around the four to six years. So we're fairly early stages yet. I started with a standard
Birdies round raised garden bed, hugelkultur method, where I put logs, old banana stalks and leaves,
crushed into the bottom. But then after that, I didn't fill it at all with
any type of regular soil. What I did was I used
commercial bagged soil that was appropriate for
plants that like acidic soil, things like roses and azaleas, camellias. Took about, I don't
know, six to eight bags to fill the rest of
this raised garden bed. And there was no doubt that that medium would be suited to these blueberry plants. One important tip I wanna give you when it comes to filling
this raised garden bed specifically for blueberry plants, is to make sure that
initially, you overfill it. Like I mean, ridiculously overfill it, and dome it up. Because you're gonna get sinkage. Have a look at the bed now. If you look at before, when I first planted
the blueberry plants in, and look at it now, you can see it's below now, the level of the raised garden bed here. And that's because
you're gonna get sinkage in whatever raised garden bed you have. That's just normal. And you wanna limit that sinkage when you've got this type of plant. With veggies, doesn't
matter, they're annuals. But blueberries are a little
bit more sensitive to that. However, I have noticed
something really cool. Since the bed has sunk, and I've added more organic matter to it, I've noticed more branches and shoots coming from below the
surface, bushing it out. And not only is it
bushing these plants out, but those new shoots are
getting berries on them. So it's not really impeding the growth, or it's not suffocating, or
it's not rotting the stems. The pros will say keep mulch away from the stems of the plants, because you could get collar rot. However, I haven't noticed any problem with that at all, which is quite interesting, isn't it? Pack it down first and then dome it up, so you reduce the sinkage. You're never gonna stop sinkage in a raised garden bed, but you can reduce it a bit, so that you're not adding
too much organic matter and suffocating those plants too much, when you do add the more soil in as the bed's sinking. Now let's get onto planting. Planting the blueberries is pretty easy. It's just like planting any other plant. You can tease out the roots if you want if they're particularly root-bound when you plant them in. And I'm trialing several
different varieties. In this bed here, I planted five, although it looks like many more now, because of those shoots coming
from underneath the soil and filling this bed out. And that was what I was
hoping would happen. I planted a Misty, Britewell, Sharpeblue, Powder Blue, and a Northland (laughs). Got 'em all, in this bed here. And they have all grown quite well. Now I didn't just plant them all so that I could cross-pollinate, which is the number one
reason people would think, well, you've got different varieties. Can they cross-pollinate? And that could increase harvest. And that is one hope. The other reason I planted
several different varieties was so that they could flower and fruit at different times, extending the harvest. And you can do this with other crops, like mangoes and avocados. You can plant different types of varieties that flower and fruit in the same season, but at slightly different times. And then, you can extend
that harvest all out. Well, that's my concept, anyway. And so far, it seems to
be working really well. Got lots of different types of berries. Some are smaller, some are larger, some medium as well. So you're getting
slightly different tastes. And I like that. I like that variety in this garden bed. Are there too many in this one garden bed? Well, that's the other
thing that I'm trialing. At this stage, I don't think so. I wanna let them grow out and grow well for a couple of years. Now, the other important thing I wanna talk about, are birds. Now, you can hear the ducks
in the background, quacking. Well, they're not a real
problem for the blueberries, but you can also hear the
crows and other birds, especially the crows. They're hanging out here because I've just opened this netting up, and they're hoping that I
bugger off for a little while, so they can come down and get a feed, because they've been looking through this. I've seen them looking in, wishing and salivating over
these beautiful blueberries that are being allowed to ripen. The fact is, blueberries
are very attractive to all types of birds, and also other animals
like bats and possums, but birds in particular. Birds will swoop in real quick and annihilate your crop. And I found that out the
hard way this season. I had lots of good, beautiful blueberries, and they were just getting robbed from me left, right, and center, so much so that you just
could not get your hands on a ripe blueberry. But it gets even worse. It turns out that the birds
will even eat the green ones. But the good news is, a simple net like this and framework, with some irrigation piping, and a little bit of bird
netting over the top of that is an easy way to keep out the birds and to stop them from stealing
your beloved blueberries. And the benefit, actually, of growing 'em in a raised garden bed like this is so that you can easily net it. Then you just have to
peel the netting back, and then clamp it up like I've done. And then you've got access
to your beautiful berries. (mouth crunches) Also, if you're wondering, this bird netting is large
enough to let small butterflies and bees and pollinating insects through, and help pollinate those flowers so that you can get as
much fruit as possible. As far as feeding and fertilizing goes, once you've got the soil sorted and you've started with
that good acidic base, well, then, it's easy to
maintain your nutrition. Two major things, watering and fertilizer. Watering needs to be done often, especially if you have a fairly loose soil and a warm climate like us. Blueberries have a very
shallow root system, which makes them
susceptible to drying out. They're not a very drought tolerant plant. And that is another reason why people find it difficult to grow. The other thing I do, is give it a good organic fertilizer. Before spring, and through our winter, before this started flowering and the new season of growth began, I top-dressed this bed with some cow manure and chicken manure, giving it a good mix of high nitrogen, as well as fill, and have a better water-holding capacity. I also did give it a watering
with some trace elements, just in case it needed
some extra micronutrients and vitamins required for
it to be in top health. And as you can see, the plants are very healthy
and in good condition. So for now, there are my
top tips and my how-to on growing blueberries
in a raised garden bed, just like this. So, make sure you're subscribed. Give this video a big, a biddy, a blueberry video, a big blue thumbs up. I'm not gonna squash that in there and waste that blueberry. I already dropped one before. Can't find it. And share it around if, if you can, because sharing
my videos around helps a lot. Thanks a lot for watching. Bye for now. (birds chirping) You're still here. Cheers.
