Blueberries

One thing about training to be a real man is that the process doesn't end with hammers and power tools. There are the ever-present issues of the yard. Besides mowing and cutting and splitting and all that good stuff, we're having problems with our lawn as well as our blueberry bushes.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, and excuse me if I have, but our blueberries, which were house-welcoming presents, have taken a turn for the worse. They gave us loads of berries the first year, tapered off a bit the next year, and this year looked like they were on the verge of death. No berries, and sickly looking. I made the mistake of putting wood ash over them thinking I was doing them a favor, only to learn they love acidic conditions and ash is alkaline. How was I supposed to know? And what am I supposed to do with all that ash?

Anyway, we are in the midst of reversing the process. I tried to remove as much of the ash and junk as possible, then spread some nice juicy acidic fertilizer around the base and covered it with pine mulch (evergreens are acidic, I learned). We got lucky in that right after doing it, it rained for days, so hopefully the conditions are working their magic on the roots, but we won't really know until next Spring, though we'll keep our fingers crossed.

There is also the issue of the lawn restoration. Our friend W said it's hard, if not impossible, to beat out lawn ivy, i.e, Creeping Charlie. The stuff is hard as nails and grows like a house on fire, so maybe I just need to embrace it... naah! When I first spread the grass seeds, I was convinced that there was no way in heck this was going to work. The seeds just sit on the surface of the soil, how were they going to grow? Well, here we are, two months later, and sure enough, the seedlings are sprouting up all over the place. How cool is that? I need to do research my next step, but so far, so good. Something to look forward to in Spring.

Until the next time, thanks for reading.