Blueberry Hill

These are three of our six blueberry bushes.  Each year they have produced more and more.  We eat a bunch of them fresh, bake with some, make bunches of blueberry pancakes and then individually quick freeze the rest to snack on throughout the year and to make delicious breakfast smoothies with.  The blueberries have done well in the spot where we planted them.

They have me a little concerned this year, though.  Prior to the growth of the fresh, tender green grasses of spring that have begun to peak up above the soil, we had some marauding chickens that weasel their way through the hog wire perimeter fence and forage through the yard for tasty morsels.  They especially like scratching at the base of the blueberry bushes and have been successful in scratching away all of the mulch that surrounded the bushes for the past several years.  While I'm sure they exposed some worms and beetles and bugs for them to feast upon, they also exposed a lot of the roots of the blueberries.

Chicken Scratch

While I'm no horticulturist, I think that those exposed roots will be susceptible to the hot sun and wind and they will dry out and hurt, if not kill, the plants.

Exposed Roots

Right now the blueberries are still in good health.  In fact they put on tons of blooms and are absolutely loaded with little berries.  We'll see if we get favorable rains and weather that will ensure a bountiful harvest.  In the mean time I need to take care of them.

So the local hardware store had a sale on mulch this past weekend.  Four bags for $10.  Tricia picked up a few bags and after a rain shower, I put some mulch around the base of the plants to replace that which the chickens scratched away.  This mulch should protect the roots and keep them from drying out.  It should also (hopefully) frustrate the bermuda grass that competes for nutrients at the base of the plants.

I did read that you aren't supposed to pile up the mulch too high around the plants and have 4-6 inches maximum.  I think I'm in line with those recommendations.

I'm counting on a bumper crop of blueberries this year from our own blueberry hill to provide some homemade blueberry jelly.  I added an additional 50 feet of 4x2 welded wire fencing that I wired over the hog wire to discourage the scratching, but I'll keep my eyes open for those tresspassing hens.  Violators will be prosecuted.