Most Productive Blueberry Varieties

hello and welcome back to gapey's garden today we're going to be talking about blueberries so if that is something that you've been thinking about growing now is the perfect time to get those planted and there's tons of different varieties so hopefully this video will help make that decision a little bit easier for you so there are evergreen varieties like this one and the leaves turn purple in the winter time but i think this is more ideal for milder climates so if you're in a really cold climate you may not be able to get the evergreen varieties but most of the blueberries are not evergreen so they lose their leaves during the winter time and each variety also has different ripening times of the season some are early mid or late so that's something else to consider but i did take some video over the course of last year so you can see just how productive each one is and stay tuned till the end of the video and i'll let you know how many pounds or ounces of blueberries i picked off of each variety [Music] i've got these in a raised bed that's about four feet wide by i can't remember how long it is but i will post that up in the notes and we've got ten different varieties of blueberries in here and they're all pretty low bushes none of them get super high um but i've had these first five here in this row i think about four or five years and then the ones behind them were mostly planted by the previous owners so they're a little bit older so the first one we have here is called brigitta and this is one that we had at our previous place and really liked it so it's a little bit hard to find but if you find it it's definitely a good one to get it gets really big berries and it's my second most productive blueberry at least last year i'll see how this year goes after i finish all the harvesting and see how it compares to last year but so far it's looking like it's going to be pretty productive this year i've already gotten a few harvests off of it and i've been harvesting today and got that bowl so far and have a lot more to pick so that is called brigitta next we have chandler and this is the one that gets probably the biggest berries out of all of the bushes here and it was the most productive last year and it is pretty productive this year so we'll have to see if it's number one again or if brigitta will take its place but it has some pretty tasty berries and it is growing a little bit wider than some of the others so i might have to do some more pruning to this one this summer or this winter but it's pretty loaded with berries lots of berries to pick and lots still to ripen and next we have patriot this one gets a really cool red color in the fall it's really pretty the berries are not as big as some of the other varieties that i have but they are pretty productive anyway and are very tasty but this one is probably i might just have one more harvest left on this one it's a little bit earlier ripening variety so it gets done earlier this here is the sunshine blueberry and it is one of the few blueberries that is evergreen so it does keep its leaves during the winter time and the berries are pretty small probably the smallest variety that i have they are pretty sweet very good tasting but it's not my favorite bush just because while it is later ripening for one thing and i'm i like the bigger berries so um and also this one does get tend to get a lot of this mummy berry where the berries kind of turn white and just fall off and don't ripen um but i've had that problem with this bush since i got it so i'm not super happy with that one i may replace it at some point we'll see this one here is called blu-ray it might be the tallest bush of the bunch um it does get quite a few berries i've harvested most of the berries off of this one already it's also a little bit earlier fruiting one than some of the others so i've probably only got one harvest left on this one and it'll be done i don't see too many unripe berries on this one but that's been a pretty productive one as well maybe my third or fourth most productive but i'll see what the final tally is this year in another month or so i wanted to mention the netting that we're using this isn't your regular cheap bird netting this is some pretty heavy-duty stuff it's kind of almost like plastic bag material but it is super easy to work with it doesn't get all tangled up birds don't get caught in it which is a plus because our previous netting we kept getting birds stuck in it and it wasn't always an out a good outcome for the birds that got stuck in it but this is what we got on amazon it works super well i was able to get this onto the onto the bed in probably two minutes by myself and we've got some little screws that we put into the the board here and we just are able to tighten and just put those on there just to secure it so that it doesn't blow away and so no critters get under it but we've been really really happy with this and it it we've used it for i think three years now so it lasts a long time we do take it off in the winter time but we do really really like this net and i'll put a link to the amazon where you can get that now on the other side we have a row of berries that were planted by the previous owners so i'm not sure what some of these are this one here on the end is another evergreen one i'm not sure if it's the same exact variety as the sunshine or a different one it does seem to be taller it actually did not set any fruit at all last year but this year it's it's pretty loaded with fruit and i think i haven't done any harvesting on this one yet this year so i need to get on that because it's starting to actually kind of fall over and partly is is because of this rhubarb that's behind it that's probably pushing against it a little bit so it's not a great place to put a rhubarb but i'll probably be moving that rhubarb somewhere else at some point next to that we have a little one called blue gold this is my newest variety i had a pink lemonade here previously but i wasn't too happy with the pink lemonade variety because it was just not very productive some years i didn't get any berries and the years it did produce berries it just wasn't very many so i got rid of it and then i replaced it with this variety here which is supposed to be a good one um it's only i think three years old so it's not super productive yet but hopefully in another year or so we'll get more berries off of that one now this one here i think might be called duke they did leave a tag um somewhere on here so i'm thinking that's probably what this was though i think the tag was actually on the bush next to it but i'm pretty sure that's not duke so i think this one is the duke um but it's got pretty small berries as well and it's been super well i wouldn't say super productive but it's kind of hanging in there kind of in the middle compared to the other berries next to that is a very very small bush and it's it's a pretty old tree so i'm actually thinking of getting rid of this one i think this one might be the top hat which is a a dwarf variety which explains why it's so small but i think it's never been very productive so that's another one i am thinking about getting rid of because it just doesn't really grow and i'd rather have a more productive bush over here and then finally we have the pink lemonade and this year it did really well it's got actually more berries i think than i've ever had since we've been here last year it didn't get a single berry but we've got loads of berries it's it is a later ripening variety so you can see there's a lot of unripe berries in here but we should get some more ripening here over the course of this month and right now we're just at the beginning of august so i'm looking forward to that they do taste a little bit different than a regular blueberry they're kind of more i know it's kind of hard to explain they are a little bit sweeter i think but it's just got a little bit different taste maybe kind of citrusy but that is all the blueberries we have if you have any really great blueberry varieties that don't get too tall let me know what they are and i'll think about adding those to the bed thanks for watching and we'll talk to you again soon if you enjoyed this video please like and subscribe you can also find me on instagram twitter and facebook

Channel: Gapeys Grub

Views: 120,390

Keywords: gapeys grub, gapeys garden, raised beds, blueberries, low bush, dwarf, blueray, bluegold, brigitta, chandler, duke, patriot, pink lemonade, sunshine, tophat, productive, productivity, harvest, bird netting, berries, pnw, washington, pacific northwest, evergreen

Id: QbEQnjttmDw

Length: 9min 44sec (584 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 13 2021