Growing Blueberries

Planting, Growing, Pruning, and Harvesting Blueberries

Blueberries are one of the easiest fruits to grow.

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Did you know that the modern blueberry is a 20th-century invention? Before the 1900s, the only way to enjoy these North American natives was to find them in the wild. Then, scientists started to unlock the secrets of cultivating blueberries—and we’re glad they did! Here’s how to grow blueberries in your garden.

Plump, juicy blueberries are now easy to grow in your backyard on bushes that are resistant to most pests and diseases, and can produce for up to 20 years. A relative of rhododendron and azalea, blueberry bushes aren’t just a great fruiting plant but also an attractive addition to your overall landscape, offering scarlet fall foliage and creamy-white, bell-shaped spring flowers. Read more about why you should grow blueberries in your home garden (as if you needed an excuse).

Types of Blueberries

There are four types of blueberries: highbush, lowbush, hybrid half-high, and rabbiteye.

The most commonly planted blueberry is the highbush. Most blueberry breeding has focused on this species, so there are many varieties that range widely in cold hardiness and fruit season, size, and flavor. Read more about blueberry varieties below.

Planting

When to Plant Blueberry Bushes

Bushes should be planted in early to mid-spring.
If available, 1- to 3-year-old plants are a good choice. These can be bought in containers or bare-root. In either case, be sure to buy from a reputable nursery or website.

Choosing and Preparing a Planting Site

Select a sunny, sheltered spot. While blueberries are tolerant of shade, better crops are obtained in the sun. At the same time, they should not be exposed to harsh, drying winds.
Don’t plant blueberries too close to trees, as the trees will not only block out sunlight, but will also suck up any moisture in the soil.
If planting multiple bushes, it’s best to plant them in a patch, rather than scattered throughout your garden. This will bolster berry production and quality.
The blueberry is a shallow-rooted plant. Therefore, it requires a soil that holds moisture, but also drains well and doesn’t stay wet. Don’t plant blueberries in sites that have heavy, clayey soils that stay wet.
Blueberries thrive in soil that is acidic. The soil pH should ideally be between 4.0 and 5.0; soil that isn’t acidic enough will stunt growth. Soil can be acidified by mixing a small amount of granulated sulfur into the soil several months before planting. Peat moss, as well as pine bark or needles, are also good additions that will help acidify your soil.
Mix organic matter into the soil before you set your blueberry bushes. (See more about soil amendments and preparing soil for planting.)

How to Plant Blueberry Bushes

Dig holes about 20 inches deep and 18 inches wide (or about twice as wide and twice as deep as the roots of the plant).
Space bushes 4–5 feet apart in a row, with at least 8 feet between rows. Prepare a planting mixture of 2 parts loam and one part oak leaf mold, peat moss, aged sawdust, or compost, and place a layer of this mixture in the bottom of the hole.
Set the bush in the hole with its roots spread out. Don’t plant the bush any deeper than it grew in the pot. Pack the hole tightly with soil.
Apply fertilizer one month after planting, not at the time of planting. Apply ½ ounce of a 10-10-10 fertilizer in a band around the plant 6 to 12 inches from the crown.

Can You Grow Blueberries in a Container?

Yes! In fact, blueberries grown in containers are easier to protect from birds and other critters, more disease resistant, easy to harvest, and easy to move if needed. Plus, if you live in an area without acidic soil, growing blueberries in containers allows you to tailor the soil pH specifically for them.

Here’s how to do it:

Use a large container with drainage holes.
Use a potting mix designed for acid-loving plants such as azaleas or rhododendrons, or mix sandy soil with peat moss and compost.
Plant the bush in the container and water well.
Add mulch on top of the soil to keep in moisture.
Place the pot in a sunny spot.
Keep soil moist.
In northern regions, overwinter the blueberry container in a protected area or cover the container with straw or wrap it in burlap.

Varieties for Containers

‘Top Hat’: Bred by the University of Michigan for small spaces and containers.
‘Pink Lemonade’: Pink blueberries contain genetics from rabbiteye blueberries (a standard in the hot South). These pink berries can be planted in nearly every climate.
‘Pink Champagne’: Another pink variety full of antioxidants and sweeter than blue blueberries.

'Pink Lemonade' blueberries — *‘Pink Lemonade’ blueberries*

Care

How to Care for Blueberry Bushes

Mulch to keep shallow blueberry root systems moist, which is essential. Apply a 2- to 4-inch layer of woodchips, saw dust, or pine needles around the bush after planting, but leave a gap around the trunk of the bush to allow for proper air flow. Read more about mulching.
Blueberries need 1 to 2 inches of water per week.
Warning: Blueberries are a favorite snack of hungry birds, so it’s recommended that you protect blueberry bushes ahead of time by draping bird netting over your plants.
One year after planting, apply 1 ounce of 10-10-10 fertilizer per bush in the spring at blooming time, and increase the rate by 1 ounce each year thereafter to a maximum of 8 ounces for mature bushes.
Do not allow the bush to produce fruit for the first year or two after planting. This lets the plant use its energy to get well established in its new home instead.
Pinch back any blossoms developing on newly set plants to allow the energy to go to growth.

How to Prune Blueberry Bushes

For the first 4 years or so after planting, there is no need to prune blueberry bushes. From then on, pruning is needed to stimulate growth of the new shoots that will bear fruit the following season.
Prune plants in late winter or early spring before new growth begins.
Cut out dead, broken, short, weak, and spindly shoots.
On highbush varieties, begin with large cuts, removing wood that is more than 6 years old, drooping to the ground, or crowding the center of the bush. Also remove low-growing branches whose fruit will touch the ground, as well as spindly twigs.
Prune lowbush blueberries by cutting all stems to ground level. Pruned plants will not bear the season following pruning, so prune a different half of a blueberry patch every two years (or a different third of a patch every three years).

Blueberry bush

Pests/Diseases

Birds
Blueberry Maggot
Powdery Mildew

Harvest/Storage

How to Harvest Blueberries

Blueberries are typically ready for picking between June and August.
Don’t rush to pick the berries as soon as they turn blue. Wait a couple days. When they are ready, they should fall off right into your hand.
If you plant 2-year-old blueberry bushes, they should start to bear within a year or two. (Pick off any flowers that form the first year or two after planting, to allow the bush to become established.) Be aware that full production is only reached after about 6 years (depending on variety).

How to Store Blueberries

Blueberries are one of the easiest fruits to freeze. Learn how to properly freeze blueberries so you can have them all winter long.

Blueberries

Recommended Varieties

Blueberries are partially self-fertile, so you will harvest more and larger berries by planting two or more varieties together. Planting more than one variety can also extend the harvest season.

Highbush (Vaccinium corymbosum): A six-foot shrub hardy from Zone 4 to Zone 7.

For withstanding cold winters, choose ‘Bluecrop’, ‘Blueray’, ‘Herbert’, ‘Jersey’, or ‘Meader’.
For big berries, choose ‘Berkeley’, ‘Bluecrop’, ‘Blueray’, ‘Coville’, ‘Darrow’, or ‘Herbert’.
For flavor, usually the main reason for growing your own fruit, choose ‘Blueray’, ‘Darrow’, ‘Herbert’, ‘Ivanhoe’, ‘Pioneer’, ‘Stanley’, or ‘Wareham’.
For something different, try ‘Pink Lemonade’, which produces bright pink blueberries!

Lowbush (Vaccinium angustifolium): For the coldest climates, lowbush varieties are your best bet, hardy from Zone 3 to Zone 7.

These are the blueberries you find in cans on supermarket shelves. When fresh, the fruits are sweet and covered with a waxy bloom so thick that the berries appear sky blue or gray.
The creeping plants, a foot or so high, are spread by underground stems, or rhizomes. They blanket the rocky upland soils of the Northeast and adjacent portions of Canada. Lowbush blueberries make a nice ornamental fruiting ground cover.
Plants sold by nurseries are usually seedlings or unnamed wild plants, rather than named varieties.

Half-High: Breeders have combined qualities of highbush and lowbush blueberries into hybrids known as half-high blueberries.

University of Minnesota introductions include ‘Northcountry’, a variety that grows 18 to 24 inches high and has excellent, mild-flavored, slightly aromatic sky-blue fruits; and ‘Northblue’, which grows 20 to 30 inches high and produces an abundance of dark-blue, nickel-size, somewhat tart fruits-just right for pies.
‘Northland’ is a half-high that grows 3 to 4 feet tall. From Michigan, it has relatively bland, average-quality fruit.

Blueberries for Southern Gardens (Zones 7–9):

Rabbiteye (Vaccinium virgatum): Grown in the southeastern United States, rabbiteye varieties are extremely adaptable, productive, and pest-tolerant. They do, however, have a high degree of self-incompatibility and require two or more varieties be planted together to ensure pollination. Recommended varieties include ‘Powderblue’, ‘Woodard’, ‘Brightwell’.
Southern Highbush (hybrids of V. virgatum, V. corymbosum, or V. darrowii): Southern highbush varieties tend to be pickier and harder to grow than rabbiteyes, but there are a few high-quality varieties that do well. Among these are ‘Emerald’, ‘Windsor’, and ‘Springhigh’.
Read more about blueberries for southern gardens from the University of Florida: Blueberry Gardener’s Guide

Wit & Wisdom

In Ireland, baskets of blueberries are still offered to a sweetheart in commemoration of the original fertility festival of Lammas Day, celebrated on August 1.
Blueberries are one of the few naturally blue foods on earth.
For centuries, Native Americans gathered “star berries” (the blossom end of each berry forms the shape of a perfect five-pointed star) from forests and fields and ate them fresh or dried them for later use.
- Dried blueberries were added to stews, soups and meats.
- Dried berries were also crushed into a powder and rubbed into meat for flavor.
- Blueberry juice was used to cure coughs.
- Blueberry juice was also used as a purple dye for cloth and baskets.
- A tea made from the leaves of the blueberry plant was believed to be good for the blood.
Tired of blueberries? Try growing another berry in your garden, such as strawberries, raspberries, or blackberries!

Recipes

Cooking Notes

Visit our recipe archives to find delicious blueberry recipes ranging from salads to desserts!

Reader Comments

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Blueberry

Hi i'am from Serbia. I wish to know where to plant blueberry? Because, someone told me that you have to find acidic place which i did, and they told me also that blueberry has to be on sea level above 500m.

PLANTING BLUEBERRIES

CAN BLUEBERRIES BE GROWN IN TROPICAL COUNTRIES LIKE EASTERN NIGERIA WHERE I RESIDE?

I want to buy at least best

I want to buy at least best variety 24 blueberry plant to start a garden in my home town India. So can you please provide the plant.

Buy a jersey berry bush

I use miracle gro , seed starting potting mix. Do I had to change the soil? It rain a lot. I give it plant food by miracle gro every 7 days? Am I doing something wrong.

winter

I have 4 small blueberry plants that I purchased and planted this summer. They are growing, but I don't know what to do with them over the winter. They are in small pots that came with them.

giant blueberry plant

I have a similar question. I have 3 small plants I have bought for my granddaughter. We have them in pots on the patio. What should we do to winter them? Do we cover them? Or can we bring them indoors? Would really appreciate your help on this matter. Thank you.

Protecting Blueberries During Winter

Hi Laura,

The best thing to do is push the pots up against the side of the house for a bit of protection, add a nice thick layer of mulch around the crown of the shrubs, and lay burlap or some kind of tarp over them. Blueberries require a cold dormancy period to fruit. They are pretty tough; they should be fine come spring.

What happens when the plant makes seeds?

Once the plant start making flowers for seeds what do you with them? Do you leave them or cut them off after all the seeds have blown away?

Blueberry Flowers

When a blueberry bush starts to flower, you do not have to cut the flowers off. The flowers will drop off in a few weeks.

Zone 9...!

Hello,
I just love blueberries, I go to Finland in the summer every year but I live in Rome, which appears to be in zone 8-9...
Is there any chance I can grow them, and if so, which variety...?
Thanks

Shade blueberry bushes

I live in eastern MA (zone 6b) and have a small yard that is very shaded. While I realize that I will never get the amount of berries a sunny location would, I still want to replace my 2 quince bushes with blueberry bushes. What variety will have the best chance of survival with shady mornings and sunny afternoons?

Native Blueberry

Hi Bill,

Try your region’s native highbush blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum, as it is a woodland garden shrub that can take part shade.

getting started in blueberries

I just moved to Hermosa SD, which seems to bee a zone 4.5. We have LOTS of pine trees. I'm assuming our soil is somewhat acidic, due to the pine needles.

We have lots of places to plant under trees, and also lots of full sun spaces... I'm wondering what variety to plant for flavor and harvest number.

What size plant should I start with?
What time of year?
Where to plant them?
When will here be fruit?
How many plants should I plant for two people who eat a few pounds of blueberries a week?

Planting Blueberry Shrubs

First, I would caution against digging under established evergreen trees; it is very difficult, as they have tremendous root zones that require very aggressive measures to get through, which is not good for the trees, and ultimately not good for your blueberries, as they will be competing for room to grow as well as nutrients and moisture. If you can plant them elsewhere, start with two-gallon pots. Plant them in the fall when the weather is cooler. If they are happy, they should fruit the next summer (in time they will likely produce more fruit than during their first season). You would have to plant a whole lot of shrubs to eat a few pounds weekly! Space depending, five to seven plants will give a reasonable yield.

Where to plant

Thanks for your response. Can blueberry shrubs get full sun? Is a "2 gallon pot" a typical size I can find at a nursery or is that an older plant? And would they do better if all in the same area?

Blueberries

They can take full sun, but do better with a bit of shade. Two-gallon pots are a common size; you will also find 5-gallon pots. You are looking for container plants that are 2 to 3 years old (you can also buy bare-root blueberry shrubs). They won’t necessarily do better planted together but by grouping them you are ensuring they have the same soil conditions, and it makes watering both easier and more uniform. When planting, space the shrubs 4 to 6 feet apart (If you go with bare roots, plant them in early spring while plants are still dormant.)

Blueberry bushes disease

My blueberry bushes have developed black dots on the leaves. What is this and what do I do about it?

Leaf Spot on Blueberry Foliage

It sounds like they might have Septoria leaf spot disease. Try to keep the foliage as dry as possible (avoid overhead watering) to limit the spread of spores; also remove the most disease-riddled leaves as well as any that have dropped into the soil. This is a difficult disease to manage once spores are in the soil. If the plants continue to succumb, consider replacing them next year with disease-resistant varieties (start with clean soil, i.e. remove what is there and replace with compost-rich, amended soil).

Blueberries

I live in northern Califirnia and I have 2 blueberry bushes that are doing pretty well except one has very sour fruit. I have waited until the berries are dark blue but still are bitter. Do you have any suggestions as to why one bush has very tasty berries and the other does not..

bitter blueberries

Are the two bushes the same variety? If not, it could be that the other variety has a different, more sour, taste. Flavor will vary between varieties. If your bushes are the same type, was the bitter plant producing an unusually abundant crop of berries? If so, those berries can be bitter. When your bush overproduces, you’ll want to be sure to thin the fruit so that the plant can focus on growing fewer berries, and that can help the sweetness. Perhaps another possibility is that the plant is under stress–mechanical injury, disease, environmental, pests, etc. – check to see if the plant looks healthy overall, including the base of the trunk (to check for any damage to bark by weed trimmers, etc).

Just a hint, add hard wood

Just a hint, add hard wood ash about 2 in deep in a circle about 4 in from bush. Water lightly. do this early June and you harvest in Aug will be so sweet your mouth will hurt lol.

blueberries

I have two blueberry bushes in large pots, Climax variety, I believe. I don't seem to have any growing problems, but I wonder why my berries have so many seeds. Is it the variety or is there something I can do?

Blueberry Seeds

All blueberry species have about 20 small seeds, but your blueberry variety’s seeds are more noticeable. The climax variety is a type of rabbiteye blueberry, and rabbiteye blueberries tend to have more noticeable seeds. You could try a non-rabbiteye variety if you would like the seeds to be less noticeable.

Care for Blueberry bush

I have a few blueberry bushes. I notice their leaves are more yellow than green and they do not look healthy to me. What should I do? I would really appreciate some advice.

Kind regards,
Verceles Laron

yellow leaves

It sounds like the plant is struggling in soil that is not the proper pH. Yellow leaves on blueberry plants are a sign of iron deficiency. Have your soil tested before doing anything hasty. Soil kits are available at garden and nursery stores. Or contact your local cooperative extension (usually at a public/state university).

useful website

Bluberry wheather

I live in iran ,The north name is mazandaran which have a 60 percent humanity by the bigest lake (caspian see)in the world also rains almost 2 days of the week or more but good sunny days as well in summer , rains more in spring than summer dear and no body try to grow bluberry and i have request some blueberry seeds to cultivate for testing and need to know some advice and wanna know rainy days effect my bluberry plant do u think?

wild alaskan blueberry

was looking for wild alaskan blueberry plants or seeds . Would they grow in western pa. if i can find some?

pink lemonade y

I planted my pink lemonade blueberries last year and wondered when they will produce blossoms. It's the first week in April plants look healthy but no blossoms.

Blueberry blossoms

Your pink lemonade blueberry plant should show white-pink flowers in spring, and the berries should ripen in late July to early August. Often, when blueberries are not flowering, it is due to lack of pollination. Perhaps it has been poor weather and the busy bees have not come out? Blueberries are very susceptible to late spring frosts, too. Also, while blueberries are self-fertile they do much better when there is a second blueberry plant that blooms about the same time. There could be other issues, such as acidic soil pH (which needs to be below 5.5), good drainage (no wet feet!), and proper pruning, but usually it’s the bees.