7-5-2024

Pulled up the mulch and cardboard today.

The grass underneath was dead and ready to be removed. I took my garden rake and raked all of the grass off and then I covered the area with a bag of ‘True Organic Berry Food’. This is a 5-4-4 fertilizer.

I watered it in and then I covered the whole area with a layer of peat moss, and watered that in.

Then I covered the whole area with a layer of Pine Bark Mulch, This is a finer mulch than the Pine Bark Nuggets I have used in the past. My thought with this mulch is that it may help keep any grass that tries to come through at bay better than the nuggets would. And if it decomposes by the Fall then I can just till it into the soil, whereas the nuggets would be harder to do and they don’t seem to decompose very well. We will see in the Fall. I then watered the mulch in.

And this is what the new patch looks like. Now I sit and wait for nature to take over and convert this area into a nice blueberry patch. Hopefully it will be ready for planting in the Fall.

7-20-2024

I was curious how this new patch was doing so I did a pH test and it is still way too high, but it has only been few weeks.

I decided to take a shovel and see what is going on with the dirt. Once I put the shovel in the ground I knew what the problem was. The dirt was pretty solid. Not clay, we have nice black dirt about 10 inches deep, but it hadn’t been tilled in years.

I then proceeded to dig the whole thing up and give it a good turning-over, mixing everything together in an effort to get the pine mulch and peat moss mixed together.

I also added some berry-tone and perlite to the mix and turned it all in well. I also noticed that when I started digging the soil was pretty dry so after I mixed it all together I soaked it with a heavy dose of water.

My watering process.

Since the dirt was so dry I thought I would water it more frequently so I laid down a rubber soaker hose and ran it for 20 minutes. This sort-of worked, the dirt under the hose was nice and wet but the rest of the dirt around it was still pretty dry.

On to plan B. I hooked up an oscillating sprinkler and tried to limit its range to the 3 foot width of the bed. That was a failure. These things suck.

On to plan C. I bought an inexpensive multi-position sprinkler from Menards.

This sprinkler allows me to water a concentrated area easily. It has 8 positions so I am able to use it for multiple planting areas. Not bad for $3.99

Using this sprinkler I am able to soak my new bed for the best water penetration with minimal waste/overspray. I run this for 15 minutes everyday, unless it rains, to help get the ground softened up (at least that it my thought process) and get the nutrients moving along.

I will keep checking the progress weekly.