WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-Pruning blueberries

It might be hard to believe now, but someday we're going to be eating blueberries again! Sooner than you think! And your blueberry bushes may need some attention, and this is the time of year to do it.

Garden Expert Charlie Nardozzi tells us you want to prune them while their still dormant.

"If you have young blueberry bushes, you don't really have to prune them at all for the first three years or so. But if you have an older bush like this, and they can go to about 40 years old and still produce, but you do need to prune them and what you want to look for, is different aged canes on the bush. You want some young ones, some middle aged ones and a few old ones."

"Because the really young ones probably don't do a lot yet?"

"Right. the middle aged ones are very productive, and the older ones ok, but if they're older than about 7 years old, they need to come out."

"So what about something like this that looks dead kind of farther down, but it looks like it has buds on the top?"

"Yes, they do have some live growth up there, but in general, this is a pretty old cane and you can see there are a few live growths on it, but I would take this one out. This would be a good candidate, and I would take it right at the base. Snip it right out. You can see it opens it out, and allows all of these smaller canes to come in there, and fill in this space and these will eventually become big enough to become very productive."

" In general, you just want to open it up, so the air will flow through it better, and you'll have a nice vase shape to your bush so it will be more productive."