A Young Alaskan Pioneer
He shares how he starts new blueberry bushes from seed!
I was scanning posts on Facebook a while back about gardening and this post popped up about blueberries. I love to go to the mountains in the summer to pick wild blueberries. I was fascinated. I read about a method of propagating blueberry bushes on my own property and it was mind-blowing. Just think how nice it would be to have your own wild blueberry patch.
Thanks to Josh Smith, it is now possible. In his post, he described in detail how to recover the miniscule blueberry seeds and grow them into bushes. Josh Smith got into this because he believes these plants “deserve to be in all of our Alaskan landscapes”.
Blueberry patches are closely guarded secrets in most cases in Alaska, shared only with family and close friends. Good blueberry patches are few and far between, usually in the mountains, off the trails, difficult to get to, often in rugged, old forest fire burns, or boggy terrain. Getting asked to go blueberry picking is an honor to be treasured if you are a newcomer. Blueberries are ripe for only a short time in the summer and that varies depending on the weather. When they are ripe and if the weather turns rainy and windy, they will fall right off the bush and berry picking is over for the year. If you are a berry picker, you have to be ready when the berries are. There is a lot of competition for them, including bears and other critters.
Wild Alaskan blueberries are known for their exceptional flavor and nutritional benefits. People stand in long lines to get a wild blueberry ice cream cone. Blueberry cobbler is to die for. There are other blueberry delicacies like, blueberry jelly, blueberry muffins, blueberry pie, blueberry vinegarette and the list goes on. Freezing, and canning are common conventional methods of preserving blueberries. Drying blueberries are an indigenous people’s and pioneer’s method of preserving the fruit for the long winter months.
The following instruction for propagating early blueberries is shared with permission of Josh Smith.
“These lovely native Vaccinium ovalifolium/Kanat'á (Tlingit)/ Gigantsa (Dena’ina)/early blueberry were collected by a dear friend on the southern Kenai peninsula! The process I used is below, with these seedlings being started in middle November (my birthday treat to myself ). I have about 150 of these from a small bag of berries, and just goes to show the potential of making native plants available!
My goal is to learn and share the information real-time! native plants have a place in every landscape/space and sharing the process for growing will hopefully encourage others to grow these beauties!
Growing Vaccinium uliginosum/ovalifolium/vitis-idaea
Step 1) harvest fresh/ripe berries
Step 2) blend fresh berries in blender with water (1-part berries to 4-5 parts water). Blend on low for 10-20 seconds, then stop and allow mixture to settle (seeds sink and pulp floats). Once settled, pour pulp and about half the water out. Then add fresh water and blend again, settles again, and pour off pulp. Repeat! After 4-5 times, the water will be clear and clean seeds will be at the bottom of the blender!
Step 3 pour out water and mix seeds in with moist peat moss (moist but doesn’t drip water when you squeeze it). Once evenly mixed, place in a Ziplock bag and squeeze out any additional water/air and seal.
Step 4) place bag immediately in the fridge (between 33-40F but not frozen!) and leave for 90+ days.
Step 5) after 90+ days, remove baggie from fridge, and spread seed/peat mixture in a thin but even layer over a larger pot full of peat moss.
Step 6) water carefully and place pot under grow lights. Within 6-12 days, you will start to see the first seedlings germinate. Water delicately and give a very diluted fish emulsion feeding after a few months and the plants have first few true leaves. Transplant as necessary and harden off prior to planting outside!”
Josh Smith has been working on and developing many other berries, nut/fruit trees. His method is so successful that he is opening a nursery in June 2024 to sell his berry bushes and other plants. It is called Black Mountain Forest Nursery in Peters Creek, Alaska. (See Reference)
Ref. Black Mountain Forest Nursery on Facebook. There are also many posts about how to propagate many of the native to Alaska berries/fruits and nuts.