Blueberry Wine

I finally got plants in the ground! Woot Woot! 15hrs 31 mins daylight Despite the ATV still being down (husband said he'd look at it tonight after I threatened to read the Haynes manual and fix it myself) I dragged 3 wheelbarrow loads of homemade compost that I used Pfeiffer biodynamic compost starter in. I selected a bed that happened to have a lot of good things going for it. It isn't in the oldest part of the garden, but it's in an older area that has a good amount of topsoil already. This particular bed had garlic in it last year, and happens to have several plants that stayed dormant last year, but decided to come up this year. This is great because the garlic will deter pests like spider mites and others. There's also a bunch of beneficial herbs that have self sowed in the bed like chamomile, motherwort and catnip. Catnip is good for repelling mice and voles, as well as flea beetles and aphids. Chamomile is great because it has natural anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, as well as sequestering calcium, magnesium and potassium while attracting beneficial insects like ladybugs. There were also several clover plants that I left in so they can sequester nitrogen in their roots. So I had my bed selected, put 3 loads of compost down, broadforked it, and then grabbed a wheelbarrow full of bark mulch and added 3 quarts of dolomite lime for a Cal-Mag boost and also to balance the acidity of the bark mulch. After I spread that over the top of the bed I dug out my planting holes, popped the babies in and then added around 2 quarts of the Coast of Maine Bar Harbor blend that they've been in around the outside of their roots so they have a little more of a buffer as they spread out and transition to the compost, don't want to stress them out too much! Then I put down a layer of local Lucerne Farms Ground Cover mulch. Last year was a very dry summer, and it's looking like this year will be too, so I'm using a lot more mulch in the garden. Anything I can do to help with moisture retention. After that I placed support hoops for the row, and added 2 yellow sticky traps to grab any early diners so they don't bother the plants while they're settling in. The final piece was the Agribon Ag-15 row cover, which will lower their stress by keeping them warmer at night, and also reducing the direct sunlight during the day. I used one 2 years ago with my transplants and had great results. But there was only 1 Blueberry that went in the ground. The other 2 went into 10 gallon fabric pots for one of my dear friends who is battling breast cancer right now. There may be about 40 years age difference between us, but we've been growing together from the start. We order seeds together, I start seedlings for her, I check her plants when she has a problem or needs to know if they're ready for harvest, and she gives me a gallon of fertilizer for special occasions😘 She's a character too😹