I am interested in planting blue berries this spring and wanted to know if there is a variety out there that I could plany in our wood lot. There is a couple sort of open places where I thought it would be good to use. I don't want to let any space go to waste. I know comercial blueberry farmers plant in fields for better crop collecting. But will they grow in shade? Thanks for your help.

-- michelle (tsjheath@ainop.com), March 19, 2001

Answers

I have wild blueberry, (huckleberry), out back,, and I have all trees,, all oak and jack pine. Ive been thinnning out the trees,, hope the berries will be ok.

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), March 19, 2001.

Full sun is best. Semi shade is semi good. Shade gives you the least crop, at least from my experience with domestic and wild berries. It sort of depends on how dense your shade is. If it's really really dense shade, I don't think you'll ever see much more than leaves.

-- julie f. (rumplefrogskin@excite.com), March 19, 2001.

Sun, acid soil, and plenty of organic matter. If you are missing any of these, you will get little or no dependable crop.

-- Leo (wintersongfarm@yahoo.com), March 19, 2001.

We have tons of wild blueberries among our numerous pine trees...they are in semi-shade most of the time, yet seem to do quite well.Yet all I have ever read about them says acid soil and full sun..go figure.

-- Lesley (martchas@bellsouth.net), March 19, 2001.

Should do fine.... put me on the list for your first jar of jam!!!

If you have rabbits or chickens, be liberal with the manure... Let the chicken doo dry out before using. They LOVE acid soil. If the shade is only partial, and they get manure two or three times a season you should get great harvests!

If you decide against the blueberries, what about a thornless rasp or blackberry? They are invasive, though, so you have to be very vigilant.

-- Sue Diederich (willow666@rocketmail.com), March 20, 2001.

hi Sue, thaks for the info, My hubby has mentionedrspberry or blackberry bushes too, we are not worried that they will over take the ares. I thought the trees would push them out. I havelots of chicken doo doo, so thats not a problem!

The areas we are looking at to plant have mostly beech trees. Thereare a few maple there as well. Hubby thins outthe dead and sying trees to help the healthy ones to grow so we thought we should plant somethng that we could benifit from .

Thanks to everyone who has given me their suggestions they are all helpful!!

-- michelle (tsjheath@ainop.com), March 20, 2001.