On 12/6/2016 12:13 PM, Derald wrote:
George Shirley wrote:

If I can get her to get some of her flowers out of the gardens along the
fence I would get some domestic dewberries and plant them there. I may
do it anyway as the blueberry plants we put in two years ago won't grow
worth a darn. I suspect dewberries would do much better as there isn't
much sunshine in that spot.
I did some time working at a neighbor's blueberry ranch in '01,
'02, or thereabouts. Had a few bushes in containers for kichen use but
we didn't eat enough of them to warrant the water so I returned them to
the source and haven't grown any fruit since until now.
Down here, blueberries are grown commercially above grade on or in
pine bark obtained directly from sawmills located a short distance north
and are fed citrus or azalea (acid-producing) fertilizer. Container
plants, for the most part, grow in pine bark, too. Otherwise one must
diddle with soil pH and who needs another continuing project?
The native soil and the water in peninsular FL are too alkaline for
blueberries, although, from Gainesville, and Starke, and in the
panhandle away from the coast, as recently as the 1970s and very early
1980s, native blueberries grew profusely in the pineywoods habitats
before progress obsoleted and did away with them, replacing them with
roadways and houses in many areas.

Yeah, I have several old friends in Florida, mostly refugees from the
northern states that moved when they retired. I grew up in the Piney
Woods of Texas and am familiar with pine needles. I went into the woods
behind us and got a pick up load of pine needles for the blueberries we
planted but they still haven't done anything. They have leaves, they
make a few blooms but they don't seem to grow nor ripen fruit. I finally
took a lot of looks over a day or two and it just doesn't get enough
sunshine. Wife planted old maids next to them and they got four feet
tall trying to find sunshine.

I think dewberries or blackberries will do okay there as they mostly
grown in spotty sunshine in the woods around here. Plus those berries
can be planted close to each other and they still do well.

The rain finally stop and we've had some spotty sunshine today, thank
goodness the vegetable garden is growing like crazy after four inches of
rain over three days or so.

A while back I made a run back to our old home place, surrounded by
houses close together, streets running through what used to be woods,
etc. One plat, across Hwy 10 is still pristine, 990 acres belonging to
the Stark Foundation. I used to hunt and fish on that property and now
they have wardens walking it to keep people out for some reason but
there is no use of that property. Our ten acre plot is still the same,
the guy I sold it to is keeping it that way, all three of the family
houses on that land are still there and occupied by his kinfolk. Looks
homey to me.