Introduction – Blueberries – North Apple Bed – Panoramic View – Dwarf – Conclusion
Gene’s Answers – Train a Mini-Dwarf – Favorite Apples – Map of Backyard
Orchard Entrance
Welcome to Gene’s backyard. Here’s the view as you enter through the side gate. This page’s pictures were taken on an overcast May day, after the apple blossoms had dropped.
Blueberries
Up ahead and to the left are his six blueberry bushes. They’re in bloom.
The blueberries sit under a protective frame that Gene built using inexpensive electrical conduit pipes and connectors. It holds a half inch mesh screen which lets pollinating insects in but keeps the birds and squirrels out.
Gene’s blueberries provide a consistent crop year after year, about one gallon per plant. His blueberries never need spraying. Gene thinks it’s because his plants are isolated. There just aren’t any nearby blueberries to act as a reservoir of diseases or insect pests.
Gene decided to grow blueberries after reading some books with a lot of conflicting ideas on growing blueberries in non-blueberry country. See, Gene likes a challenge and he also likes blueberries. The main difficulty is that the soil around Chicago is alkaline and blueberries prefer it acidic. He started by preparing the ground a year in advance. First he dug up the soil and mixed in a lot of peat moss, enough of it so that the original black soil now looked brown. Next he added garden sulfur to bring down the pH. The following spring he planted six blueberries. They were 2 year old bare rooted plants of the varieties ‘Herbert’, ‘Earliblue’, and ‘Blueray’.
This next picture shows the view as you walk across the patio to the lawn. That mass of violet color to the right is a ‘Karen’ azalea bush in bloom. This normally green leafy shrub puts out a spectacular show of May color. Farther back but in front of the fence, is a bed of mini-dwarf apple trees.
