Blueberry Bed

Well, after horrific amounts of drama over the blueberries - where my two Jumbo Northlands arrived several weeks early, in the snow, we had storms, the ground was frozen, then it rained for 3 weeks straight... I called Henry Field's and they offered to replace them, which was good.... then they were sold out of those and could ship them next year (yeah right) and me attempting to keep the poor blueberries alive in a bareroot state for more than a month in the garage - they will finally be put in ground tomorrow!

This weekend Pete and I worked our tails off getting that bed built. It's HUGE, 12ft long X 4 feet wide X 2 feet deep. We had to buy topsoil by the 40lb bag and it took 40 bags (1600lbs) plus 13 cubic feet of compressed peat moss plus 200lbs of composted manure to fill it. Not to mention the stones to build the thing! We ordered a pallet and a half and used them all except 8. Each pallet weighed 4,000lbs and contained 80 stones. So basically the two of us, by ourselves, moved almost FOUR TONS, 8,000lbs, of materials in 2 days.Holy crap do my feet hurt.

But, the bed looks GORGEOUS. It is built with Oxford stones in a beautiful grey color that sets off the house nicely. The mixture inside is a roughly 1:1 ratio of topsoil to peat, with some manure thrown in. I added roughly 2lbs of ammonium sulfate and 3lbs of sulfur to the soil. Originally the soil tested at a pH of 6.0, and I would like it around 4.5 for the berries, so in a few days I'll retest it.

Tomorrow I have an appointment with Dr. Lowe and Katie comes over around 10am. I know, that's not early for any normal human, but it's early for me! Before I go I want to get the three bushes I have into the ground so they can settle a little before the heat of the day. I have one northland in a pot that is younger but substantially healthier than the bareroot plants, from a garden center. I plan on putting it in the middle towards the back, and the other two at either end. Then I have 2 dwarf northsky bushes coming and I will put those in the front. I also have 5cf of pine bark mulch waiting to mulch them in.

FINALLY!!!!! My dream from several years is coming true at last!