My nearby nursery has these varieties of blueberries: Peach sorbet, bountiful blue, south moon, star, and pink lemonade.
What is your opinion of these and can i do better in San Diego. I was looking for the sweetcrisp but can't seen to find. Willing to trade for figs

I’ve been growing blueberries for around ten years now but don’t think they’re worth the effort and space. I think Southmoon is the one that has been producing ripe berries for me for the last week but the label is too faded to read. I’ve grown O’Neil, Misty and a few others. They don’t like our alkaline soil, alkaline water and have to be grown in large, squat pots with a special acid potting soil or straight peat and given the right balance of sun and shade. I’ve even used special blueberry fertilizer ordered on line. Several just refused to grow or died with the local water and summer heat. You can buy excellent organic blueberries at many of the stores so it just doesn’t seem to be worth the expense and effort for the tablespoon of berries they produce every few days for a brief period. This article might be helpful: http://ucanr.edu/sites/gardenweb/berries/blueberries/

Blueberries are not easy to grow, but once you meet conditions grow like weeds. I have lost a few and did figure out what I was doing wrong. We grow more northern highbush blueberries than any other state. Not the most blueberries (at one time we did) the most Northerns. Still I find my backyard berries superior to anything I can buy.
The best method is raised beds using rainwater, but you can add acid to tap water. With raised beds sulfuric acid is the best. You need a reliable way to test pH. I find the strips called MColorpHast the best. I use the ones with the 4.0-7.0 range. I just need to know this range. Anything at 4.0 or 7.0 I know I need to adjust. I have had problems with containers being too acidic, so I agree they are not easy to grow.
My larger plant produces about 20 pounds. They really can produce in ground.
Some of my plants are sizing up and I expect good production from them too.




My raised beds are a 3 to 2 ratio of pine bark and peat. I add DE the size of perlite sometimes too.

It's only fair LOL that we can't grow blueberry's in So. Cal, but that those in Northern Climes can. I mean really, we can't have it all  ;)  I remember as a kid picking wild blueberry's up in Oscoda near Mio Michigan in old burn area's. Those were the best. But here in So.Cal I killed enough blue berries to not waste my time. Tried Red Currant's too. Yum but they too don't like it down here.

I was born in Oscoda, well East Tawas. My dad was in the Air Force, stationed at Wertsmith (now closed).

We do have alkaline soil here. I've never let those barriers from trying anyways. We are spoiled here as it's easy to grow a lot of different things. Checking acid levels not so bad compared to the shuffle

Several years ago I had a nice potted southern highbush blue berry bush that produced decent amounts of berries, but not a ton. Not knowing any better about soil requirements, I put it in the ground and it died after a long period of decline, most likely due to the alkaline soil conditions here. I'm trying again (after doing some research), but will leave it in a pot. I did do my best to kill it last summer - with all our heat, the pot was drying out quickly and I was away a good bit. So I put a pan underneath the pot and ended up rotting out a good bit of the roots.  It died back to a single twig, but I left it alone and it has come back, leafing out and starting a few new canes/branches.  It's a Carteret (Southern Highbush) low chill variety, so fingers crossed that it does well here as I haven't heard too much about them.

Blueberries can do well here, so best of luck.

In N. Ca. Been growing Blueberries for a few years now. Id say they are pretty easy to grow in containers in my area. For mix Its around 90% azalea mix 10% microbark. Fertilize with azalea fert and ammonium sulfate. My tap water is pretty alkaline but hasnt been an issue. I have bountiful blue (i like this one the best), sunshine blue, and jewel. Planted small 1 gal plants in 20 gal containers and they grew to 5 feet bushes in 1 year. Nighttime temps are cooler ~60 deg but daytime temp 80s-100 in summer. I get lots of fruit out if 4 plants. My daughter (and myself) can eat them non stop so looking to add a few more plants this year.

Like eric, I grow them in N. Cal and we have similar issues as S. Cal. Plant in an acid mix and occasionally use ammonium sulfate or rain water if you can catch in the winter. We get a lot of berries too, have to freeze them usually. It can be done.

JCT good job on keeping it alive. Don't feel bad if it goes. I have observed that they tend to recover very slowly. I have come to the conclusion it's best to start over. I nursed a plant back to health only to have it suddenly die 2 years later. I replaced with a new one, and that one is growing three times faster than the recovered one, and now feel sometimes it's better to throw in the towel. I would have been better off replacing as soon as it declined.

Erics11 After having them in containers besides raised beds, I noticed the containers with using Ammonium sulfate, acidic soil mix, and rainwater. soon found all my pots way too acidic even for blueberries! It cost me 2 plants before I figured it out. I now use tap water for container plants. I think if you keep adding sulfur this happens. Almost any food for acidic plants has sulfur. Dr Earth's, Holly-Tone etc. One that does not appear to is Miracle grows Miracid food. I think i will use that for containers and monitor pH. if it goes up I'll go back to the more acidic fertilizers.

How about abyone with sweet crisp to sell?