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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 16, 2018 10:31:29 GMT -6
Man, I'll be glad when Winter is over! It was 23 degrees at 7:00 am this morning. My blueberries are in full bloom.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 6, 2019 18:33:02 GMT -6
I harvested a gallon of blueberries from my Climax Blueberry Bush, just two or three days ago. This morning, it was ready to be harvested again!
I love this variety of blueberry because it doesn't ripen all at once. It will bear fruit over the course of several weeks, just enough some days to go pick some to put on my yogurt for breakfast, some days, so heavily that I end up giving some away to my kids for making pies and ice cream.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 16, 2019 23:14:27 GMT -6
Great news!
I harvested 3 gallons of blueberries total, from my one Climax Blueberry bush since July 6th. For our soil, this is the most prolific variety I've found. I would highly recommend it for the Tahlequah region.
It not only thrives in our growing conditions, it is actually slightly invasive, which is a real plus with a great producer like that one is!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 22, 2019 16:22:57 GMT -6
After harvesting 3 heaping gallons of fresh blueberries from one bush, earlier in the month, I went out this morning and picked my breakfast from the very same bush.
This, one, Climax Blueberry plant, has been in heavy and continuous production for the entire month of July, which is wonderful, as most other varieties play out by mid-June. A photo cannot do this plant justice. It is so prolific and is still absolutely covered with blueberries, even after having been harvested at least 4 times during the month of July. Looks like I'll have breakfast from this plant several more mornings before it's done.
Thank you, God, for such a bountiful harvest.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Oct 18, 2019 20:15:44 GMT -6
The last few blueberries of October. This Climax Blueberry bush still has ripe fruit hanging from its branches in Mid-October! It has been a solid week since the killing frost last Saturday morning. This bush keeps making berries, like it's the Energizer Bunny on steroids.
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Post by macmex on Oct 19, 2019 6:59:57 GMT -6
That's amazing!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 23, 2020 17:21:05 GMT -6
The Climax Blueberries are beginning to ripen in earnest now. My bushes are covered this year, to the point that my berries are smaller than normal, but they sure make up for it in quantity. I've been 'picking' my breakfast out there for about the last three days running.
The Climax berries don't all get ripe at once, like some other cultivars, so that allows for several weeks of fresh harvesting in small quantities. Last year, I still had a few berries getting ripe as late as October. The first ones get ripe sometime in late-June, so there is a window of about 90 days of light harvests, which is really nice if you enjoy a few fresh berries along with your yogurt, cereal, oatmeal, ice cream, or smoothies, just about every morning of summer.
I've just finished running PVC pipe, from the the condensation line of my air conditioner, to the blueberry patch again today. That way, the constant, cool, drip will not go to waste and I'll not have to worry about remembering to water my blueberries every day.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Mar 28, 2021 17:41:57 GMT -6
I hope it’s not considered bad forum manners to revive this old thread. I just loved reading about those blueberries. I can’t really imagine three-gallon harvests. We planted four Rabbiteye varieties our first spring in Texas, and two the year after, so this year will be the first that the oldest ones are three years old. Our four oldest varieties are Climax, Powderblue, Premier, and Austin (actually, Austin died last summer, I think because the drainage holes on the pot got clogged, and I therefore inadvertently overwatered during a heatwave). We did eat some blueberries last year (a cup or so at a time). We are hoping for more this year now that the first plants are more mature. We added Brightwell and Tifblue later, so they are still immature. We plan to replace the Austin this year with a later-producing variety called Ochlockonee. It was very hard to find that one. There were some mail-order sources, but I either wasn’t sure about the reputation, or the shipping just made it unrealistic to buy one plant. I recently figured out that Home Depot sells it under the Southern Living Brand with a name like “For Heaven’s Sake,” and this one was well priced with free shipping. (They also sell some other varieties with other, in my opinion, unhelpful names, but you can find the scientific name in the specification chart.) We need to keep our blueberries in pots because the land is so alkaline here (average pH is 8.3). It makes it tougher to grow them, but I sank my “olla” clay pots into the larger containers, and that helps. I’m debating putting saucers under the larger pots just to make it easier for me to make sure that the containers are draining, but I’m torn about it, since I hate to cut off all access to the life in the soil below. I love having earthworms visit my containers, but I might have to use saucers to monitor the watering in case of more blocked drainage holes. Heavyhitterokra, your description of your air conditioning drip really made me smile. We do something similar. We have two drain lines, each on opposite ends of the house. One runs by means of a garden house through our back yard to a Satsuma Mandarin Orange tree (that was huge before the freeze—about eighteen feet in diameter. Thankfully it lived, but so far the green is only showing on the bottom couple of feet of the trunks, so I think it will be a lot smaller, and we might route the drain line elsewhere). For the other drain line we built a PVC aqueduct that starts way up high at the base of our attic, runs sideways at a small slant, then drops down the side of our chimney to join up with another line. They both run through a hose (held up with larger PVC because any droop makes it not work properly) into an old garbage can turned rain barrel that sits in our side yard. That’s where we collect water to use in the blueberry pots. I scoop it out in watering cans, at times adding vinegar to try to keep my pH in check. It had started creeping up before I realized that my neutral water was having an effect. I’m curious, heavyhitterokra, do you have other Rabbiteye varieties besides Climax? I don’t see mentions of them, but it was my understanding that Rabbiteyes needed good cross pollination. In part that’s why we have a number of varieties because we got a discount on our first purchase of four for buying the multi-pack, so to speak. We also like the possibility of staggered harvest times if we get to the point of abundant harvests. It seems that you have that already. I was amazed to hear of blueberries in October! This isn’t the best photo, but it’s a shot I took last weekend from inside my netted “blueberry cube” (an 8’ by 8’ by 8’ structure my husband built me with a door and bird netting) with a close-up of the flowers and very baby berries on my Climax plant in the foreground. My daughters painted the olla lids a couple of years ago so that we wouldn’t lose track of which variety was which. (The earliest blueberries were already well budded during February’s freeze, so one advantage to pots was that we were able to move them to our garage which shares a wall with the area of the house heated by the woodstove. We kept power mostly thankfully, but that woodstove was cranking.)
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Post by chrysanthemum on Mar 11, 2022 21:21:52 GMT -6
It’s been warm recently, and my blueberries are beginning to flower. Unfortunately a cold front has been blowing in all day, and the clouds cleared off in the late afternoon, so we’re supposed to drop to the low 20’s tonight. My husband and I took advantage of the warm day yesterday to put up polypipe and frost cloth over the pots. Tonight we went out just before dark and clamped a poultry brooding lamp with a 200 watt lightbulb in the center to provide extra heat. Here’s the view from the family room window. We did not have a good crop last year, and this past December was so warm that one of the plants actually set fruit which was then killed by the New Year’s Freeze. I’m hoping to save the flowers in order to have at least a small crop this year. (We couldn’t cover the peach, so I think I’ll have to give up hope for that sadly.)
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 12, 2022 10:40:40 GMT -6
chrysanthemum,
Thanks, for reviving the blueberry thread. The photo that you posted above looks very good. hopefully, that will make all the difference.
In years past, I've had limited success saving peach blossoms by burning a charcoal grill full of firewood after dark on cold nights, then lifting the lid and poking up the coals to add more wood at about 4:00 am. Not all of the blooms will make it that way, but it usually saves a few. Probably a propane heater would work much better, as it would provide constant heat.
However, I've had really good success saving blueberry blossoms from freezing, by driving steel Tee-posts around them in a square, then placing a tennis ball on each post to cover the sharp edges, so I can spread a tarp over them.
At night, when it gets cold, I plug an electric space heater under the tarp, making sure not to point it toward any berry bush wood, so that it doesn't roast the plants. (Probably your chick warming light would be a much better deal). The heater I use is kind of overkill.
The buds on my blueberry plants here are just beginning to swell, (no blossoms yet) so last night, I didn't cover them. Last night's temperature got down to 8 or 9 degrees, about 6 or 7 degrees lower than forecasted. I hope that low temperature didn't freeze the buds in the wood. I've had that happen here before, back in 2011 when it got down to 15 below zero in February. It snowed 20' inches over a period of ten days, freezing my apple blossoms in the wood. Then, when Spring came, I had no blossoms that year.
In response to an earlier question that I somehow missed, (posted in March of 2021), yes, I do have more than one cultivar of blueberry planted here. In addition to my Climax bushes, I also have one Premier blueberry bush. It barely lives from one season to the next and hardly produces, but I suppose it does its job of cross-pollination because my Climax bushes bare really well.
My blueberry bed is one that I hand dug. It's 8' x 8' feet square. We used to have a huge red oak tree in the backyard. When it died, I had it cut down by the power company, as it was overhanging the electrical service on our house. After it was cut down, I carefully burned the stump over a period of several days, as it was very close to our house. To accomplish that, I built a small fire at the base of the stump and sat there day after day holding a hose attached to an air compressor. The hose blowing fresh air kept the coals burning without adding any wood to the fire, so that it burned itself under the surface of our soil about two feet deep.
After the stump had burned out, I had a huge, cooked, red clay hole in the ground where nothing would grow for a long time. After a few months of head-scratching about the dead spot, I decided to dig the hole out even bigger and to replace the soil in that spot with a 'real' blueberry bed. I read up on the pH requirements for blueberries and built the bed accordingly. It took several bags of peat moss and potting soil to get the hole partly filled, then I added several wheelbarrow loads of topsoil. I amended that with seasoned cow manure from a barn that I cleaned out for a neighbor, plus several layers of sorghum stalks, lots of oak leaves, and quite a bit of powdered sulfur.
After all of that was composted, I bought a few blueberry transplants. Mosty Premier, but I also tried a variety from Gurney's called "Kablooie" (I think they called it that because after the first year, it went "Kablooie" no more blueberry bush!)
In my third year, after several failures, I accidentally bought a variety called, "Climax" thinking it was Premier. It had been mismarked at the nursery and was still dormant when I set it out. When it leafed up later in the year, I was very disappointed to see that it had a sage-colored leaf and was definitely not what I thought I had bought.
In that way, I accidentally found out that Climax really likes it here. Premier just barely survives my growing conditions, but Climax puts out runners underground and sprouts up as almost invasive. That was a very happy accident! I love my Climax blueberry bushes! They are late to make berries and come on after the main berry season has passed. I get my first berries about July 4th, and they keep producing more berries if I pick them clean. In years past, I've had blueberries still on the bush as late as October. I like this arrangement, because my Climax bushes put on just about enough berries every day to enjoy them fresh with a cup of yogurt and some cereal for breakfast all summer long. I get about a cup of berries per day for weeks on end.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Mar 13, 2022 15:19:17 GMT -6
I uncovered the blueberries late this morning, and they’re looking just fine after their little spa treatment over the weekend. I hope that means that we’ll have a crop this spring, though our bird netting is torn in several places, so we’ll need to re-attach it to the cube and fix some holes. Since our plants are in pots, they’re not too big, and I’m afraid we don’t have enough to share with the birds. They get to eat cherry tomatoes later in the season, though.
Climax has been an early bearing blueberry for us. I’ll have to pay more attention this year and make some notes on how it compares. I know that our Premier bush is our tallest and has borne well for us in its first couple of years. Nothing did well last year, and I don’t know if that was freeze related (they were in our garage for the big freeze, but there was still some cold in March), but they just didn’t set as well as I had expected.
Your planting spot sounds like it was a lot of work, but blueberries are picky about their soil. That’s why we’ve had to use pots. It’s not ideal, but I don’t think I could amend enough to deal with our limestone down here. It’s great that Climax has spread so much for you. We’ve had a few suckers develop on our different varieties, and we let them grow to replace old and dead branches. I’m hoping to have more success this year.
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Post by theozarkan on Apr 13, 2022 21:19:56 GMT -6
I love blueberries but have never had any luck getting any to grow. I may try again with the climax.
One of my best childhood memories is of my mom taking us to a local pick your own blueberry farm. I don't really know why but it seemed so exciting back then. I looked forward to it every year. Eventually all his plants died and he never replanted.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Apr 14, 2022 6:47:40 GMT -6
I love blueberries but have never had any luck getting any to grow. I may try again with the climax. One of my best childhood memories is of my mom taking us to a local pick your own blueberry farm. I don't really know why but it seemed so exciting back then. I looked forward to it every year. Eventually all his plants died and he never replanted. Just a note: Climax blueberries will need another variety, or even two, for cross pollination. Here’s a link to a helpful factsheet. It’s written for South Carolina, but it gives a lot of useful information. hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/blueberry/My blueberries had good flower set this year, but I’m not sure if the flowers are developing into fruit. Some of the branches seem to be withering. Maybe it’s all the hot, dry wind we’ve been having.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 15, 2022 16:12:29 GMT -6
Oh, wow Chrysanthemum! That website you provided a link to is chock-full of handy information. I read things there that I've never heard of before, such as the chill hours required for the different varieties of blueberry bushes. Very informative. I love the way Clemson University does their write ups. I wish our local agricultural University was so dedicated in their studies.
I had a couple of photos to share here of my Premier and my Climax varieties, but I guess I'll have to post them later. The imaging service is currently shut down for maintenance.
The photos were going to show the difference in how these two varieties produce. The Premier is a larger fruited, earlier berry, but is way less prolific, having only a hundred or so blossoms appearing on the bush.
The Climax is a smaller fruited, later variety, having literally thousands of blossoms appearing on the bush. The Premier comes on basically all at once. The Climax ripens over a number of weeks, providing berries from July through as late as October in some years. I've harvested as many as three gallons of berries off of the Climax bush over the course of the long fruiting season.
In reply to Ozarkian, There is a place located about a mile and a half from here that grows about 15 acres of blueberries. Each summer, they hire help picking their berries. We used to walk there from our house to pick berries each summer. The kids were too young to pick when we first started going there and the workers there would not let them in the front gate. Since it was such a big field, I came back later in the pickup truck and dropped the kids off around the far end of the field and had them crawl through the barbed wire fence to meet me when I drove back around.
We'd pick a few gallons of berries, then I'd have them meet me back out on the dirt road, where I'd give them their money for picking berries and we'd head to the dollar Tree to buy something fun for the rest of the day. We did that for several years before they were ever allowed to come in the front gate. It just added to their enthusiasm. There are some good memories there in those berry fields.
P.S. I had to add quite a bit of sulfur to my blueberry bed before any of my plantings would prosper there. They really require a lot of acid... Those different number of chill days required for each variety, that I read about in the Clemson paper above was really interesting too. I had never heard that before and wander if that might be a factor?
That just goes to prove we are never too old to learn something new. I enjoyed reading that report.
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Post by macmex on Apr 23, 2022 6:08:35 GMT -6
For some years I lived in the "cradle of the domestic blueberry," having the same soil the first cultivars originated from. It was sandy, yet we had rain at least every third day. There were huckleberries all around, as the predominant under story in an oak or pine forest. The acidity was very high. I struggled with the vegetable garden on account of the extreme lack of water retention and high acidity. We managed.
One day I had to have an in ground oil tank removed. The removal company dug it up and took it away, filling the hole with beach sand (we were not far from the shore). That spring I stuck four tomato plants in that spot, in unamended beach sand. They did better than the tomatoes in the garden!
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