Sheri, I disagree when people say pick off the flowers to save the plant's energy for vegetative growth for the exact reason you are seeing. My mango trees would re-flower sometimes twice after picking off the first set of flowers. I say let fruit form and pick them off while immature. This seems to decrease the likelihood of it simply re-flowering, and go on to vegetative growth. I have been doing just that on my one year old plants, but am leaving a small portion of berries, perhaps 10 or 20%. I want them to become nice sized plants to hopefully get a nice harvest next year.

Gary

I'm new to growing blueberries, but with citrus trees, when the trees are young just the small forming fruits are picked off not the flowers. What Gary says makes a lot of sense and that is what I am doing too.

Christine

Thanks for the responses.

So what I'm hearing is to let the blossoms set fruit and then remove most of the berries when they're small?

Also, the berries that are on the plants are taking a long time to ripen. Is this normal?

Thanks again.

Sheri :-)

Yes, don't bother so much picking off flowers, focus on picking off blueberries while they're immature. If you see a few flowers while your picking off blueberries and you don't think you'll be back out again soon, go ahead and pick them off. Not sure about the ripening time for blueberries, but it probably takes around 3 months or more.

Dghays,

I think it's great that there's a blueberry that really produces in zone 10b! I'm actually looking forward to tasting a couple of them so I may not pick every one off. This shouldn't adversely affect the plants, should it? Do you know when I can let the plants go ahead and really set fruit? How about next season?

Thanks.

Sheri :)

Sheri, I'm sure a small crop like that would be very minimal in effect. I plan to base harvest each year on how happy I am with the size of my plants. I'm also going to allow around 10 berries on each plant.

Gary

Gary,

When you say ten berrries on each plant, I'm assuming you mean while your plants are quite small, correct? Also, are yours in containers as mine are?

Thank you,

Sheri

I put 5 Sunshine Blues in the ground about a month ago and they are covered in blooms and I was wondering when to pick them off

thanks for the info

Robert

Where can I find this "Sunshine Blue"? Do the berries make a good cobbler or pie?

Tropicalfreak

Hi,

I got my Sunshine Blues last October from someone on here (Lisa) who ordered many small plants and sent them to Ricky's Swap for those of us who could purchase and pick them up there. The price was very reasonable compared to what they charge at some plant sites. You might want to call this to Lisa's attention on here or maybe try Park's Seeds. I think I saw where they carry these berries.

Hope this helps.

Sheri :-)

Pick your blues when they are dusty blue. Yummy!

Sheri, my plants are around 2' tall and wide. I'm hoping to get them towards 4' by the end of this year if I can, hence the limited crop.

Robert, at the beginning of this thread we are saying to not pick off flowers, but pick off the fruit while it is very small.

Gary