Many years ago, I planted a few lingonberry plants along one side of my driveway, and they have grown and spread to cover its length. I have, I think, five or six varieties of lingonberries, most of which produce two crops a year, and do great in Maine's climate. Since each variety has a slightly different harvest date, I never get enough of them at any one time to make lingonberry jam or anything, but from about mid-summer to fall, there are usually lingonberries available to pick and eat, and the plants stay green all winter, even under several feet of snow.
I am not going to go into detail about lingonberries in this first post, but they are a cold-weather crop. They prefer what might be considered poor soil for most other crops, and they thrive on being ignored. Unless there is a long period of hot, dry weather in the summer, it's not usually necessary - or even beneficial - to water them, and they don't want fertilizer. They grow best in a mixture of about 50:50 regular soil and peat moss, and I sprinkle more peat moss over and around them nearly every summer, since it breaks down over time.
My newer section of the patch is having a slight problem with grass growing among the lingonberry plants, not overwhelming them yet, but I don't want it to get worse. It was my fault. Since lingonberries root shallowly, when I started my first patch, I laid down a layer of cardboard over the existing grass, then added my soil/peat mixture on top. By the time the cardboard breaks down, the grass beneath it will be dead, and that works in that section. However, when I added a couple of plants to extend the patch, I used several layers of newspaper instead, but it broke down too quickly, so I have a problem with grass breaking through. That's what happens when you experiment: you learn that some things don't work as well as others.
I don't want to disturb the plants that are there, so I did some research and found that the type of grass that I am dealing with likes a higher pH than is ideal for lingonberries; so today, I added a bag of peat moss to the lingonberry patch, which itself lowers the pH slightly, and then added pine straw around and among the lingonberry plants, which will further lower the pH. In its natural habitat, Sweden, lingonberries do particularly well in clearings in pine forests.
I am sore right now because I spent hours today picking maple seeds out of the lingonberry patch, trimming off some of the dead branches from the lingonberry plants, since lingonberries fruit on new shoots, and then laying the peat moss and pine straw. That was a lot of bending, stretching, kneeling, and so on, which my body isn't too fond of, but it should help my lingonberries to compete with the grass.
I have a newer lingonberry patch on the south side of my property line in the back. Although the plants do not have to compete with grass there, they don't get ideal sunlight, so they haven't fruited yet, even though the plants look healthy. At some point, I'll add some pine straw to them as well, and I might look into trimming some trees to let in more daylight.
I am not going to go into detail about lingonberries in this first post, but they are a cold-weather crop. They prefer what might be considered poor soil for most other crops, and they thrive on being ignored. Unless there is a long period of hot, dry weather in the summer, it's not usually necessary - or even beneficial - to water them, and they don't want fertilizer. They grow best in a mixture of about 50:50 regular soil and peat moss, and I sprinkle more peat moss over and around them nearly every summer, since it breaks down over time.
My newer section of the patch is having a slight problem with grass growing among the lingonberry plants, not overwhelming them yet, but I don't want it to get worse. It was my fault. Since lingonberries root shallowly, when I started my first patch, I laid down a layer of cardboard over the existing grass, then added my soil/peat mixture on top. By the time the cardboard breaks down, the grass beneath it will be dead, and that works in that section. However, when I added a couple of plants to extend the patch, I used several layers of newspaper instead, but it broke down too quickly, so I have a problem with grass breaking through. That's what happens when you experiment: you learn that some things don't work as well as others.
I don't want to disturb the plants that are there, so I did some research and found that the type of grass that I am dealing with likes a higher pH than is ideal for lingonberries; so today, I added a bag of peat moss to the lingonberry patch, which itself lowers the pH slightly, and then added pine straw around and among the lingonberry plants, which will further lower the pH. In its natural habitat, Sweden, lingonberries do particularly well in clearings in pine forests.
I am sore right now because I spent hours today picking maple seeds out of the lingonberry patch, trimming off some of the dead branches from the lingonberry plants, since lingonberries fruit on new shoots, and then laying the peat moss and pine straw. That was a lot of bending, stretching, kneeling, and so on, which my body isn't too fond of, but it should help my lingonberries to compete with the grass.
I have a newer lingonberry patch on the south side of my property line in the back. Although the plants do not have to compete with grass there, they don't get ideal sunlight, so they haven't fruited yet, even though the plants look healthy. At some point, I'll add some pine straw to them as well, and I might look into trimming some trees to let in more daylight.
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