Have any of you wondered what I do with all of my spare time? :)))  I don’t seem to have a problem staying busy with something – I don’t relate to being moms who say they’re bored staying at home with their kids.  When I tell my husband, “I have an idea!”, he usually looks shocked and jokingly says, “No!  YOU have an idea?”  Because I always seem to have new things that I’m learning about and being busy with. 

One of them is what to do about my fence situation.  I really want to fence in my yard fully, but it’s so expensive.  I’ve been looking online for used fencing, but even when I have seen something that would work for us, it sells so fast that I haven’t yet been able to buy any (after looking for a year).  We’ve looked at the least expensive new options, which would be chain link fencing, and though I don’t love how it looks, it does have its strengths.  One big plus is that it would be strong enough to use as a trellis for training garden plants to grow up, something I very much want to try this year, since it would maximize the amount of plants I could grow in the limited area I have.  But even a chain link fence will come out to at least $800, and probably closer to $1000 once the cost of all the extra supplies are included.  That’s a lot of money, and I could buy a lot of vegetables at the store for that!   So I can’t really justify it as a way to save on trellising costs. 

Several months ago, I read about blueberry plants being attractive landscaping bushes, and good for creating hedges between properties.  I’ve gone back and forth on this idea for months – I like the idea of having a plant that looks good and provides something edible, but I don’t like the idea of my neighbors on the other side eating my berries without permission!  Call me stingy, but if I’m paying the money for the bushes and doing the work, I want to be able to enjoy the rewards of my efforts. 

But after finally getting the final costs for a new chain link fence (that we would install ourselves, eliminating the labor expenses), my mind keeps thinking about possible alternatives, and going back to the idea of using bushes as a fence.  I considered that even if my neighbors did take my berries from their side, I would still have the privacy of a hedge, and the berries from my side of the bushes.  And a fence would only provide privacy, so even with a smaller amount of berries I might be better off with bushes. 

So on Friday (yes, Friday, what else would I be doing then? :)) I spent several hours researching berry bushes (service berry, ligon berry, huckleberry, and cranberry), before moving on to blueberries.  You wouldn’t think there’s that much to learn, but there are several categories of blueberries – lowbush, highbush, and rabbiteye.  And in each of those categories is a seemingly endless variety of blueberries, with every having it’s own climate needs, height, berry flavor/size – it was almost dizzying.  I researched which were most attractive, which were most productive, which kind produced fruits at which part of the seasons, which had the best flavor (and there were so many opinions on this – ones that some claimed were the best, others in the same gardening zone said didn’t grow well for them).  Which could be grown successfully in my area.  What I’d have to do to prepare the soil for the bushes to be planted.  I looked at nurseries across the countries, searched for reviews on the various nurseries, checked their pricing….and was feeling a little overwhelmed by it all.  It really was a lot of information.  And I don’t especially enjoy cramming so much into my puny little brain at one time.   

I noticed that one nursery not only seemed to have very good prices, but had a note on their order form that they offered an option to choose bushes that would work best for your area.  So that’s finally what I decided to do.   After deciding on this, my biggest concern was that if I ordered on Friday, that the bushes would come on Pesach.  I didn’t mind if they came a day before, because I’d (in theory, anyhow!) manage to get them put in somehow.  But since they need to be planted as soon as possible, I didn’t want to have them sitting around for a week.  I asked about the delivery schedule (on the website it said that April 15 was the end of the shipping period for blueberries for the year), and was told it would take a couple of weeks to process my order, since there were over 200 orders to fill before mine.  So that was a relief!  (And hopefully they won’t surprise me by being overly efficient and send them early, which is what happened with the strawberries and blackberries.)

Then I asked her some questions about the categories of bushes.  I told her my basic needs, and then told her I’d like a selection of 30 bushes.  (I hope that’s the right amount for my needs – I decided on this spontaneously as I was talking to the representative.)  She said they’d give me 5 bushes of six different kinds, all of which are suitable for my climate, and would choose them so the harvesting season would be continuous (ie some would be early bearers, some mid season, some late leason).  She said if I want thick hedges, I can plant them three feet apart and they’ll grow together, but the fruit production will be much less because the sun can’t reach all parts of the plants.  If I want higher berry production, they suggest planting them 5 or 6 feet apart.  So I think that on one side of my yard, I’ll plant them closer (where the privacy is more important to me) and on the other side I’ll stagger them further apart. 

By the way, these come as bare roots, which means they look like sticks.  It will be a while until they grow into hedges, and I won’t get any fruit from these until next summer, but I’m happy with the fencing solution dh and I came to.  He’ll fence in the back of our yard fully with chain link (and use the slats that close the spaces up), and I’ll plant the bushes along the side yards between my neighbors on each side.  My hope is this will look more attractive and friendly than fencing, but will provide us with the visual screen that I want to have.  And of course, the berries will be a nice bonus.  🙂

Avivah