I would like to know too. I found some Sunshine Blue and Misty at Home Depot and am trying to decide where to plant them. When I tried growing northern higbbush before, the ones in part sun did better than those in full sun. Not sure about southern highbush like Sunshine Blue and Misty though...

I can tell you that the thornless blackberry will laugh at you thinking you can just move it elsewhere. Mine presents itself all over the place.

OSU says to plant blueberry plants in full sun, but most people that I know who are successful with blueberry plants have them either in morning sun with shade at mid-day or in the afternoon or in full sun in the morning and in dappled shade in the afternoon.

The most important thing about growing blueberries is the soil preparation. They need acidic soil that is well-drained and will not survive in poorly draining soils or in alkaline soils. If you have strongly alkaline soil and well water, even if you build a raised bed completely filled with a growing medium of the right pH, every time you water with alkaline water, you are potentially harming the plants because the alkaline water will counteract the acidic growing medium.

Blueberries are sort of the divas of the berry world. They like everything to be "just so". Maintaining a consistent soil moisture level is important as they do not have a great deal of drought tolerance.

Scott, lol at the comment "at least for 5-7 years". "water perfectly" caught my eye too since some of us live in areas where there's not enough rainfall most years and the city water/well water is strongly alkaline.

I'd grow blueberries here in my very alkaline soil and water if I was a glutton for punishment, which I am not. I want to grow them, but I don't want to be in the never-ending struggle to acidify my own water to suit them since our water tests at a pH of 8.2 to 8.3.

Dawn

Is there a simple way to figure out the ph of my water? I live in Edmond and have city water.

Is there a way to either acidify the water or counteract the alkalinity of the water? Maybe adding Espoma's Holly Tone every so often?

Don't do this! it's a sales call much to my suprise.

Home depot for a free water test. They have kits, or will send someone out if you've purchased anything water related recently. My blueberry gets sun until about 3pm and avoids the late afternoon sun. I'm not from here so the traditional planting instructions for almost everything have to be altered a bit. I have shade on my garden too. Grew tomatoes and herbs in the shade last year.

The simple way would be to contact your water supplier and ask what the pH of the water is. There may not be a simple answer. I expect Edmond probably gets water from a lake (Lake Arcadia, maybe?) but also might have other sources, including water wells. They should be able to tell you what pH the water is adjusted to at their water treatment plant, but if that info is available, it likely will be available as a range of numbers. I expect your water there will be somewhere between neutral and slightly alkaline but I'm just guessing.

We tested our own water and then compared our results with the water quality information from our water co-op that in printed annually in the newspaper, and found the pH results we got from our tests were exactly the same pH that their report showed. Our water is well water from large wells owned and operated by the water co-op that serves our portion of Love County.

There are ways to acidify the water but it gets expensive over time. People who have aquariums use commercial products to do it. I don't know how it is done in agricultural areas where a pH change is needed. Think about the cost of acidifying your water every single time you water year-round. Blueberries need perfect watering in the summer. If you let them get too dry, they can suffer greatly and die. Rainfall is not consistent enough. I don't even know if you could catch enough rainfall in a rain barrel to keep a few blueberry plants watered----maybe some years you could but undoubtedly in drought years you could not.

Tim and I would dearly love to grow blueberries as he and Chris both love them. However, when we weighed the cost of having to build them their own raised beds, filled with an imported acidic mix (since our soil is highly alkaline) which would have to be replenished regularly since organic matter breaks down, and then having to put in their own irrigation system which would involve water treated to the proper pH, we decided we'd be growing some very expensive, time-consuming blueberries. With our almost constant droughts here, we didn't want to grow anything which is that labor-intensive and which needs not only a pH-adjusted growing medium but also a constant infusion of pH-adjusted irrigation water. So, for us, it just makes more sense to buy organically-grown blueberries in bulk at CostCo. Only you can decide if you want to go to all the trouble to attempt to grow blueberries in an area where, I suspect, you have both alkaline soil and alkaline water. Using something like Holly-Tone would help, but acidifying soil is a non-stop process. You can't just add a fertilizer with acidifying agents a few times a year and have that be enough to keep the plants happy.

Most people I know who have gone to a great amount of trouble to grow blueberries in an area where the soil and water are alkaline have run into trouble in one of a couple of main ways: (1) they used normal water from the hose to water their blueberries and the alkalinity of the water damaged the plants over time. I am assuming its regular use made the acidic growing medium revert back more to an alkaline pH over time; (2) they didn't pay rigorous attention to the plants' watering needs in summer and the plants suffered in hot spells and went downhill and died or nearly died---and never were healthy again; or (3) they did a great job for the most part, but then took a 2-week vacation during a drought summer and came home to dead plants or had water restrictions in a drought summer and lost their plants, or something similar.

I decided long ago when we first moved here that I'd try to work with the soil and water we have. Amending soil is one thing----gardeners everywhere do that as needed to meet the plants of what they grow or want to grow. However, attempting to grow acid-loving plants in an area where both the soil and water are alkaline is a battle I'm not willing to take on. If I had acidic soil, I'd happily grow azaleas, blueberries and other acid-loving plants, but I don't.

Oh, and another thought on your water----you might check the website of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board. I don't know what all they have there, but they might have the annual water quality reports posted for each water supplier in the state. I don't know if those reports include pH in every case as many large municipalities use multiple water sources, so it might be hard to get a pH breakout in that sort of case. I do know that our water co-op's annual water quality report was where I first found our local water pH.

My water is neutral and I use it straight, but I did plant into straight peat moss with pine or pecan shell or pine needle mulch. I fertilize a few times each season with Miracid .

In drought years I have added a small bottle of vinegar to my stock tank and then watered from there. When I only have to water once or twice a month I haven't bothered.

I test my pool daily so I have a little test kit that works well for pH.

My earlier post was mostly sarcastic.

Pj405 how are they now?

Gee Dawn, since you put it that way. Where's your sense of adventure. I have struggled with my berries. I just don't have the time to water when they need it. Usually it is when I'm trying to get my haying done or working on my equipment.

If they all eventually die I will just fill the area in with fruit trees.