How to Protect Blueberry Bushes

Blueberry bushes need special care, because of their long ripening process.

Blueberry bushes, if properly cared for, can give you a great harvest of delicious blueberries year after year. These woody shrubs can take two years to begin flowering, and the fruits care take up to three weeks to ripen. These attributes make protecting your bushes critical to producing a good crop. The three major factors that may affect the health or production of your blueberry bushes are freezes, birds and animals, and sun scalding. Birds and small animals can be kept out using a removable fruit cage. Sun scalding is unusual for blueberries, but if you notice what looks like bruising or burning on the southwest face of the trunk, you may have sun scalding.

Things You'll Need

• Measuring tape
• 12 pieces of PVC pipe
• 8 corner PVC connectors
• Handsaw
• Several yards of bird netting
• Plastic zip ties
• Cloth
• Whitewash
• Buckets
• Rake
• Polypropylene fabric

Instructions

Protection from Birds and Animals

1. Measure the height, width and length of your blueberry patch. This will inform you how large of a fruit cage you will need to create with PVC. Buy PVC pipes with their length equal to the longest of these three measurements.

2. Cut these pipes so that four of the pipes are slightly larger than the length of the patch, four pipes are slightly larger than the width, and the other four are slightly larger than the height.

3. Fit one of each size pipe into the three openings in the corner connectors. Connect these PVC pipes so that the structure can fit over the blueberry patch.

4. Roll out the bird netting to fully cover the PVC frame. Secure the netting to the frame with the plastic zip ties. Put up this cage during the three weeks when your blueberries are ripening. You can take it down for the rest of the year.

Protection from Freezes

1. Rake the soil around the base of your blueberry bushes so that the soil is bare. This will allow the heat stored during the day to radiate from the ground into the bush.

2. Cover the bushes with polypropylene fabric. This will help to keep frost off the leaves of the bush. Frost can cool the heat inside the plant, causing damage.

3. Fill buckets with very hot water and place them near your blueberry bushes. These will radiate heat for your plants throughout the night.

Protection for Sun Scalding

1. Observe the trunk of the blueberry bushes and look for a scalded or bruised mark on the trunk. This is caused by heating late in the day, when the sun is low in the sky and the surrounding air is very cold. This can cause the cell walls to burst.

2. Whitewash the trunks of your blueberry bushes; this will help to prevent them from absorbing heat from sunlight.

3. Cover the trunk of the tree in cloth. This will also prevent problems caused by sunlight.

References

• Gardening Guides: Fruits: Blueberries
• Rob Smith: Questions on Blueberries
• Garden Guides: Protecting Blueberries from Freezing