This is more of an update on our two plants: the old one we’ve had since 2007 and the new one we got in 2009. You can read more about their pasts here.
I haven’t had the heart to chuck it away as I still hope it will recover! But it looks like we’ll have to get a new one.
The kit I ordered is called the Children’s Link-A-Bord kit and it costs £29.95 but I used a 10% discount code so I got it cheaper. I chose this kit because it measures 1 metre wide x 0.5 metre deep, so it fits really well in the space we have on the patio. Harrod Horticultural also sell a kit which is exactly the same size as the one I bought (product code GDN-749), but they are charging £30.40 for it, so I saved a few pennies getting the Children’s one!
I was going to buy my kit directly from www.linkabord.co.uk but they don’t have this sized kit, although you can order parts separately but that worked out more expensive.
Anyway, as you can see from the photo I’ve managed to put it together. The boards and the corner links fitted together quite easily, but I had a bit of trouble getting the dowels through the holes as this kit is 2 raised beds stacked on top of each other. I cut the dowels with a hacksaw which was easy and I left them longer than the depth of the bed as I thought I might need to tie things onto them, like a cover or net.
The seedlings need to acclimatise for a week before I plant them outside permanently, so I’ll leave them in the empty bed during the day and bring them in at night. The weather is really unsettled at the moment and it’s very windy, so the bed is offering some protection.
As the bed has no base, when I put the soil in I will be putting it directly onto the patio as it’s just concrete. I did check with the Link-a-Bord customer services and they said this was fine to do. Obviously I’ll put some broken crocks at the bottom for drainage and I’ve got 2 bags of multi-purpose compost at 40 litres each, so that should fill it up. I’m still debating about whether to buy some Miracle-Gro Fruit and Vegetable Feed to mix in with the compost before I put my plants in. There’s probably enough nutrients in the compost, so I’ll probably just put some feed on once the fruits appear on the plants.
If I’d used my brain I would have easily realised that 2 bags of compost wasn’t enough! If I’d stacked the bags on top of each other inside the empty bed then I would have seen how much of the bed they would have filled. So I think you need at least 5 bags of compost (40 litres) to fill the bed, which could work out quite expensive!
I bought a 1kg bag of Slow Release Plant Food from Wilkinsons, so I put in about a quarter of the bag and mixed it into the soil and compost.
So I’ll be planting my seedlings out over the weekend, which will hopefully make them happier as they’re looking a bit droopy right now!
Steve’s Mum kindly let me use a bag of compost she’d bought, so the raised bed is a bit fuller now. I’d watered the soil/compost the day before, so I thought it would be OK to plant everything today.
As you can see from the lovely photo I took (and decorated in Photoshop, isn’t it colourful!) I’ve tried to space things out so the plants have room to grow.
I grew almost everything from seed in peat pots, but I took almost all the seedlings out of the peat pots as I planted them in the bed to give the roots more freedom. The butternut squash were planted still in their peat pots as their roots had grown right through the peat pots.
As you can see from the above photo, I’ve put some green plastic things (they came with some plants Steve’s mum bought)over the plants to protect them from cats and squirrels. I’m also hoping I can train the butternut squash to grow around them in a circle. I’ve also used an empty plastic tray to cover some of the beetroots that weren’t growing too well.
Something dug a big hole where my carrots were! We suspect it was a squirrel as they’re always digging things up in the garden and I saw one nearby when I found the hole – pesky thing! So I’ve put chicken wire over the plants to protect them as that seems quite effective. You can buy something similar from Harrod Horticultural called Rabbit Wire.
This is the cover I made from a Medium Plant Fleece Jacket, which I’d bought from Harrod Horticultural last Winter. I just cut it so that it was one flat piece of fabric. As it was a drawstring bag I just put a cane through where the string had been on both ends and then staked each cane at opposite ends of the bed. I pull the cover down when it’s too hot and I don’t want the plants to get too much sun.
You can see the progress of all my plants on these pages:
We have two blueberry plants because apparently you need at least 2 different plants from different cultivars so they can pollinate each other. So I’ve separated the info on each plant as they will grow slightly differently.
However all blueberry plants need the following care:
The new blueberry plant was bought from our local garden centre and it was only £7 for this established plant that already has fruit growing on it, so we’re really pleased.
The new blueberry plant is looking very well, although it dries out quite quickly. We didn’t transplant it from the pot it was bought in, because Steve’s Mum thought it shouldn’t be disturbed whilst it’s in the fruiting stage – I don’t know if she’s right but she’s been gardening much longer than me so I’ll take her word for it! We just put the pot into a big heavy pot to stop it falling over. I will also need to buy some ericaceous soil as blueberries prefer an acidic environment. But the berries are growing nice and fat so it will be interesting to watch them turn blue!
Woweee! We have got 4 berries that are turning blue! Although I’m finding it difficult to understand any information I find on how to look after blueberry bushes (like when to feed and prune) it seems to be doing OK without any meddling from me!
I would say that when buying a bush, it’s definitely worth buying one that already has fruit on it, unlike our older plant (see below).
These are the first fruit pickings from the new blueberry bush! There are quite a few unripe blueberries still on the bush, so we should have quite a good crop. We haven’t tried them yet, but just popped them in the fridge as they should keep for a couple of weeks in there. I’ll probably make a cake with them, or maybe serve them with pancakes.
Apparently you can plant bushes for containers at any time in good growing weather, but if you want to plant them in the ground then you should do it after leaf fall (November to March). So as soon as I can pull my finger out and buy some ericaceous compost I’ll the plant some TLC and re-pot it in a bigger pot. I’m still unsure what size pot I should use. Apparently the best size pot is 12-15 inches in diameter, but I’ve just read that it shouldn’t be more than 5cm larger than the rootball, so I’ll have to get my measuring tape out!
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Our old bush was bought from Van Meuwen via The Mirror newspaper and when it first arrived it was quite small and not bushy at all – just a few weak little twigs!. Although it is a dwarf-variety it has taken us 3 years to get it to look more like a bush. It cost more (£8.49) than the new bush (£7) which was a much more established plant, so we have learnt our lesson about buying from mail order companies!
The leaves have turned really dark green and I’m not sure if that’s good or not! It looks pretty healthy so I’m not too worried.
I’m really pleased with how the old blueberry bush is looking now. There was loads of new growth and so I trimmed it back to give it a better shape! Occasionally I pour cold tea (no milk or sugar!) onto the soil as I read that it contains acid and it seems to be doing the trick. I should really buy a soil tester but I can’t seem to find a good one.
I’m hoping that the browning of the leaves is just the natural Autumnal colour change and not because I’ve neglected the plant so much! I have bought a PH soil tester off Ebay, so when it arrives I can really see how alkaline the soil is!
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So this morning I repotted both plants. I decided to plant the new plant in the pot that it’s been sitting in to anchor it down. This pot is 18cm/7 inches in diameter and although a 12-15 inches diameter pot is recommended, the rootball was very small so I didn’t want to use a massive pot at this stage.
I had to find a much bigger pot for the old plant as the rootball had filled the old pot. The pot I used was 38cm/15 inches in diameter so it’s the right size now and shouldn’t need repotting again. I ended up using the whole 20 litre bag for these 2 plants, plus a bit of the old soil.
I got Steve’s Mum to advise me on how many crocks should go into the bottom of the pots (quite a lot in the case of the big pot) and she told me to press the soil down well around the plant to make sure there were no air pockets. I watered both plants after repotting as they were really dry, despite all the rain we’ve had recently.
I used my new PH/Light/Moisture tester to test the PH level and I’m happy to report that it is now 4 which is acidic, so hopefully the plants will be happy that I’ve given them the growing medium that they need!
I might prune the old plant a little bit once it’s settled into it’s new home.
©2010 Mandy's Munchies
