Blueberries and Ericaceous compost advice needed.

greenlove

Currently I have around 16 middle sized blueberry bushes growing in tubs. I have been thinking of building a couple of raised beds in order to transfer all the blueberries into. The raised beds will be approximately 12 feet long x 2.5 feet wide and 2 feet high. However I am conscious of the fact that it's going to take a lot of ericaceous compost to fill the raised beds and that stuff doesnt come cheap.

Do the raised beds need to be filled with pure ericaceous compost or can it be a mixture of soil and ericaceous compost? Also is there a way to making ericaceous soil or compost myself?

Lupin 1

I'm not brill as blueberries in pots of eric'.

I would add some peat free compost & some leaf mould to help bulk out the eric' compost and give the occasional eric feed, and if beds are dry water with rain water.

Hope someone else can help more  Dunno if seq' iron would help

Alan4711

Hi Greenlove, your problem of soil led me to buy Honeyberry as  they are ok in normal soils ,i did get some blueberry but they are staying in pots as im told they prefer them, i know  this don't help you at all but good luck Alan

greenlove

Hi guys. Thank you very much for the replies.

Verdun, my garden soil is very clayish and as a result everytime I plant something I have to dig a fairly large hole which I then fill with a mixture of soil and compost (I get rid of the clayish soil that I dig out).

I intended to build two of those beds so there should be plenty of space I think. The plants are already in fairly large containers that have all been placed inside a large 12feet x 6feetx6feet cage. I thought using raised beds would give the roots more space to develop and also make the whole thing look neater. But by the sounds of it looks like I may be better leaving them in pots.