"Martin Brown" wrote in message
...

Yes. They will need acidic ericaceous peat based compost and they may
well be fussy about growing at all in a garden - unless it is very windy
and you can maintain the right balance of moorland water and drought.

You are probably better off growing high bush blueberries,

Yes, I'm coming round to that line of thinking.

and going out
on the moors to harvest free natural bilberries when they are in season.

I do that aswell.. well there's a place near Preston when I go up and see
relatives each August. I've still got some of last August's pick in the
freezer :-)

If they do require a special soil I was thinking I could dig out a couple
of
feet of the existing soil and replace it with a soil/compost they like,
but
would that be enough? Perhaps after diggin out the 2ft of soil I could
put
an inch of concrete down and then put the favoured soil on top, so that
the
bilberry roots don't grow down into soil they don't like!

Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Why do you want to specifically grow bilberries at home? There are
plenty of wild bushes and it isn't a particularly pretty plant.

My favourite fruit and so the taste far outweighs the of attractiveness for
me. While I do pick some wild ones each August, I have to do it rather
intensively because I only have a couple of days to do it in, since the only
place I know of to pick them is nr Preston. If you do happen to know of any
area nearer to Oxfordshire, then please let me know!

Regards
Bigus