Agricultural sulfur works when repeated every year or so.

Lots & lots of compost mixed into the soil can help, too, but must be repeated yearly, a tough thing to accomplish with woody plants.

Or you can grow the plants in large containers filled with a potting mix made for azaleas & rhododendrons.

If peat is moist before application and is worked into the soil properly, it will not become hydrophobic. Unless you allow the soil to dry out completely and that would be equally as detrimental to the blueberries. The base of most potting mixes intended for azaleas, rhodies and other acid lovers IS peat afterall.

Sulfur may not be carbon based but it IS considered a natural soil amendment. Also cottonseed meal is a natural acidifier but I doubt you will be able to lower pH sufficiently with just cottonseed meal to keep blueberries happy.

Since the pH scale is logarithmic and many soils have a buffering capacity that resists change anyway, it is difficult to make any substantial change in pH and for any length of time. A few tenths of a point is doable but not that much of a help. If you need to lower (or raise) pH by more than a full point, it will be far easier to import soil tailored to your needs for either a raised bed/planter situation or for containers.

Chezron, I am interested in your 'carbon based ' statement. Would you mind sharing your thoughts about that? Email me directly, if you prefer.

What makes you think Sulfur is not carbon based. Sulfur is a natirally occuring substance that covers about 35 percent of the earth.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sulfur

Chezron doesn't 'think' that sulfur isn't carbon based...she knows it for a fact and she's right. She's learning, however, that it is still an essential element, a building block of life, and is used by 'organic' gardeners and farmers all over the world.

It's important for her to remember that a good soil isn't composed entirely of substances that are carbon based. On the contrary, the mineral component is essential.

Kimmsr, sulfur is an element. It's chemical make-up is....sulfur and a little sulfur on the side. With more sulfur on top for good measure. ;-)

Sulfur was never "living" it is an element. Carbon-based things used to be alive, like plants, animals, algae, etc. They decompose.