Blueberries being my favorite fruit, I was hell bent on growing some. I always get them at the grocery store, but they frequently spoil before I can eat them all. Thusly, I usually eat them at work when they come free with the catering. I remember walking into the crew room at the Erwin Center after a load out once and spying a large dish of blueberries on the table and, with what I'm sure was a look of Christmas glee on my face, blurted out, "Blueberries! My favorite!" and proceeded to scarf the whole thing by myself. I did offer to share, but most of the other stagehands declined.
I realized it wasn't prudent to eat about three hundred blueberries at once at intervals, so I decided to grow my own. I visited the garden center and bought two bushes—you have to get two kinds because they require cross pollination. The guy in the garden center asked me if I'd grown blueberries before, and when I said no, he offered me some tips. He said they were a challenge, and he wasn't kidding. Blueberries have to be cross pollinated, meaning you have to get two kinds in order to get a crop. Also, he said, they love peat moss and sun, and he wasn't kidding there either. I planted them in a mix of half potting soil and half peat moss, and I'm wondering if maybe I shouldn't have used all peat moss.
Also, it's hard to cross pollinate without bees in the area (where did they go?), but other insects can do that as well. Also, you can shake the blossoms to help the process along yourself. The berries were big, juicy, and delicious, so I considered it a worthwhile effort. Even without fruit, the bushes are pretty.
