Blueberry beds

[peas&carrots]

Hello

I am putting in an orchard and need to do raised beds for my blueberries.

I live in Ohio, so we have heavy clay soil. We decided to do 12" raised beds for our 18 blueberry plants. These varieties grow 4-5 ft high and 4 ft in diameter, spacing should be be 4-5 ft between plants. We are doing to rows of 9 (18 plants total).

Soil needs to be acidic, 4.5 -5 pH.

Question is: how much sphagnum do we need to used to change the pH? And should I use pelleted sulfur?

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

[ButterflyLady29]

Why not regular peat? Sphagnum is pretty expensive and hard to find in large quantities.
Have you done a ph test? If so there are charts available that will tell you how much sulfur to add.

[tomc]

I would use peat or bark mulch to increase the organic matter in your Ohioan clay. You're also going to use sulpher to acidify that soil. Mere peat is not adequate to your need.

[peas&carrots]

We run at about a pH of 7 everywhere. Is there a difference between peat and sphagnum?

[peas&carrots]

As far as bark mulch, are you referring to pine bark mulch?

[tomc]

As far as bark mulch, are you referring to pine bark mulch?

I tend to seek out pine bark mulch for use in bonsai and as top dressing around vegetables. For applications around trees or shrubs, I don't think it matters.

[ButterflyLady29]

Peat moss comes in larger packages, is finely ground like potting soil, and is much cheaper and easier to find. Sphagnum moss is long, stringy fibrous material. They come from the same plant, but peat is dead material gathered from the bottom of bogs. Sphagnum is gathered live then dried and packaged.