Blueberries are valuable berries in terms of vitamin composition, especially for those regions that are characterized by short cool summers and severe winter periods. Due to its high frost resistance, it is also grown in our climate. What kind of berry is blueberry Elizabeth? How to plant it, read the article.
Blueberry Elizabeth: Characteristics
The birthplace of the plant is North America. This is a strong-growing deciduous shrub, whose life expectancy is one hundred years. Its height reaches two meters. Spreading branches, processes have a specific color, indicating a high frost resistance. This late-ripening crop has small bluish-green leaflets. The flowers are small, with a pinkish tinge.
Propagated by lignified twigs. Culture is demanding on the composition of the soil. It grows in the peaty-sandy and peaty-loamy acid soils of the blueberry Elizabeth. The variety description includes many characteristics, including the expected yield, taste and size of the fruit. Read about it in the article. In the natural environment it grows in any conditions. These can be elevations with cartilaginous soils, wetlands or drained peatlands.
Fruit Description
Strong berries are distinguished by their large size and the presence of small scars. Blueberries Elizabeth bears fruit well, up to six kilograms of berries from one bush, and for a long time, sometimes several weeks. This is due to fluctuations in spring temperatures. It negatively affects precisely at that period when the blueberry Elizabeth blossoms. The description of the variety will be incomplete, not to mention the taste of the fruit. According to this indicator, this is the best grade. The berries are sweet, fragrant with a honey aroma.
The surface of the berries is bluish-coal in color, has a waxy coating. The greenish pulp has a liquid consistency. The size of the fruit in diameter reaches twenty-two millimeters. Berries ripen in early August. Thanks to the dense skin, their collection does not cause any difficulties. Berries are transported well, they do not shrink during transportation.
Landing place
To grow blueberries in a personal plot, you need to choose the right place for its comfortable growth. It should be sunny, not blown by cold winds.
If the bush is planted in the shade, a large crop should not be expected, and the berries will be sour, with bitterness. In the event that the site has clay soil, it is better to choose a small mound for planting, where a drainage layer will be traced. In the lowlands, Elizabeth does not plant blueberries, since excess moisture is harmful. Keep in mind that the plant does not like drafts. Around the blueberry bushes, tall trees or other shrubs should not grow.
The soil
If the bush is provided with favorable conditions, it will grow well and bear fruit abundantly. The best option is to plant blueberries in acidic soils. If the entire area is covered with heavy loamy soils, their top layer is diluted. Peat, pine land or river sand are suitable for this. The earth is mixed with additives in a proportion of three to one. You can acidify the soil with vinegar or a little citric acid.
If the soils are depleted, they are fertilized with mineral fertilizers containing nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. After you have made the necessary recharge, the bed should be dug up well and left alone until the blueberries are planted.
Planting material
Planting is most often carried out by seedlings purchased in the store. On the roots there should be a lump of earth, protecting the plant from drying out. If tall Elizabeth blueberries are already growing in the garden, then you can independently obtain planting material using branches and cuttings of the plant.
You can also, when transplanting an adult bush, separate a small part of it and plant it as a new plant in another place. So you have to spend some time working, but you get significant cost savings. This method is used quite often.
Landing
The correct planting procedure largely determines the further growth and development of the plant. Large seedlings are recommended for planting in the fall, and small and weak ones - in the spring. Purchased planting material before determining a permanent place of growth is first placed in water for twenty minutes. Planting blueberries is carried out in pits dug in advance. Their depth is sixty centimeters, and the width and length are one hundred.
The shrub is distinguished by the horizontal location of the root system, therefore, the pit must also correspond to its size. The bottom of the hole is covered with drainage. To do this, use broken brick, gravel, porous pebbles or something else that is in the garden. If several bushes are planted simultaneously, the distance between them should be at least two meters. Saplings together with a lump of earth on the roots are placed in the hole, spread the roots and fall asleep with soil. Then water abundantly.
The soil around the trunk is mulched with sawdust, wood chips or shavings of the conifer. A layer of mulch does not have to be powerful, just seven to ten centimeters in height is enough. This will protect the soil from weathering and retain moisture in it. Weeds will not grow so fast. It is advisable to update the mulch every year. If it doesn’t work, then in two years once. Since the root system needs aeration, the soil under the bush should be loosened regularly.
Watering
With good care gives a high yield of garden blueberries. Elizabeth needs plenty of moisture, otherwise the berries will not ripen. It is especially important to water the plant more often in hot, arid weather. But water stagnation should not be allowed, otherwise the plant will die. Everything needs a measure.
Bushes are watered as necessary, preventing cracking of the soil, but at least twice a week. However, this procedure has an important feature. The amount of water due (two buckets) is halved. One part is poured under the bush in the early morning, and the second in the evening, at about nineteen hours. In particularly hot weather, spraying the bushes will benefit. This should be done in the evening, after sunset, so the leaves will not get burned.
Top dressing
If the blueberry bushes were planted in a well-dug and fertilized soil, then in the first year, feeding is not needed. Only after a year, twenty grams of the mineral mixture and five kilograms of organic matter are introduced into the soil. It can be peat or compost. For a three-four-year-old bush, more fertilizer is needed: one hundred grams of mineral, and ten to fifteen kilograms of organic. At the end of the summer, eighty grams of ammonium nitrate should be added.
Bushes
In the first year after planting, the blueberry Elizabeth does not need pruning. In the following year, branches damaged by rot, disease, and also broken by the wind are cut. Such pruning is called sanitary. After several years, shoots thickening the bush are removed, because of which there is no good growth of the plant.
From about the sixth year of life, they begin to form a bush, giving it the desired shape. Remove all dead branches, along the way sick and broken. Such pruning is carried out in spring or winter, at the beginning of the season. Leave four fruiting branches and as many young shoots. The shoots in the lower part of the bush are completely cleaned to exclude its thickening and fungal diseases. That is all the basic information.