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Outside the grocery store this weekend, a man was selling pints of blueberries, picked fresh on his farm that very morning. He had a couple of blueberry bushes for sale as well for $24.95 each. Always looking to be more self-sufficient, I couldn’t resist taking my own blueberry bush home with me.

The farmer was happy to give me some advice about how best to plant it, and I got some further instruction from the guy at the local garden supply store.

Blueberry bushes can tolerate some shade, but the more sun they get the better they grow. Also, because my yard has a lot of clay, I need to take extra care to add some things to the soil so that the roots don’t get soaked with water.

The farmer suggested that after digging a hole for the bush, that I put some mulch at the bottom to lift the roots up away from the clay. The bush should then sit a few inches higher than the level of the yard around it. That way, if it rains, the water will have somewhere to go, away from the roots, until it is able to absorb fully into the ground.

The man at the garden supply store recommended adding something called “Nature’s Helper” which is a soil conditioner. It costs less than $3 for a 20 pound bag. He suggested that I mix in some of the yard dirt in with the Nature’s Helper to “get the plant used to the yard.”

They are the experts so I followed these instructions as best I could.

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