The blueberry is a newcomer to our gardens. Apples and plums have kept people company for thousands of years; the cultivated blueberry is a child of the twentieth century — as late as 1900, horticultural circles held that it could not be domesticated. That is exactly why it is grown unlike anything else that grows beside it. It does not want good garden soil; it wants acidic soil. It does not want nitrate; it wants ammonium. And behind the one name hide five different plants that differ in almost everything — from their winter chilling requirement to the flavour of the fruit.

All of this is the subject of a new book, Blueberries: Everything in One Place, which is now arriving in our online shop. It is not another general guide to soft fruit. The author, Dr. et Dr. Matej Prokop, PhD., built it on scientific studies — the text carries 695 numbered references, and each of the eight parts ends with a list of the works used, 158 sources in all — and its scientific content was reviewed by prof. PaedDr. Pavol Prokop, DrSc. Where measurements disagree, the book says so, and explains why. The result is a companion for the whole journey of the blueberry: from choosing a cultivar to the freezer.

491
pages
39
chapters
54
cultivars in the catalogue
123
photographs

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Nine parts, one journey

The book has nine parts and thirty-nine chapters that follow one another the way the year follows in the planting. It opens neither with recipes nor with a list of cultivars, but with the question of why the blueberry is the way it is — because without that answer, not a single piece of advice on feeding makes sense.

Parts I – II: A century and the genes
How a bush that supposedly could not be tamed became, in a single century, a crop of five continents. Five types of blueberry — Northern Highbush, Southern Highbush, Rabbiteye, Half-high and Lowbush — and why they cannot be crossed freely with one another. Genes from the south and from the north, what DNA sequencing revealed and what breeders are aiming at today.
Part III: Acidic soil, water and roots
A subject that does not exist for most fruit and that, in the blueberry, decides everything else. Why pH 4.0 – 5.5 is a limit, not a recommendation. Why the blueberry does not want nitrate, how it reaches nutrients at all without root hairs, what mycorrhiza does for it — and why water is both life and threat.
Parts IV – V: The year in the planting and what threatens it
The biological clock and the winter chilling requirement, spring frosts, flower and pollination, the seed as the engine of the fruit, bush shape and pruning, summer heat. Then diseases of wood, roots and fruit, pests and weeds — and a survey of which of the five types withstands what.
Parts VI – VII: Firmness, flavour and the journey to the shelf
Why one berry is crisp and another turns soft after a few days in the fridge, what calcium has to do with it and why liming the soil will not help. Sugar and acidity, the bloom, picking, the cold chain — and what happens to the blue pigment in the pan, in the dehydrator and in the freezer.
Parts VIII – IX: Beyond the horizon and the catalogue
The forgotten relative Vaccinium stamineum, blueberries grown for beauty — and almost a third of the book: a catalogue of 54 cultivars in seven groups, with its own alphabetical index and page numbers. For every cultivar its origin and breeder, a description of bush and fruit, cold hardiness and chilling requirement, pollination, picking time, advantages as well as disadvantages, and a photograph.

A catalogue that speaks the language of numbers

With blueberries, the choice of cultivar decides whether the bush survives the winter, when you will pick and how the berry will taste — more clearly than with anything else in the garden. The first thing the book asks about is the chilling requirement: how many hours below 7 °C a bush must accumulate over winter to wake up at all in spring. The five types differ in this by more than tenfold.

Southern Highbush100 – 400 hours
 
Rabbiteye300 – 600 hours
 
Northern Highbush800 – 1,000 hours
 
Half-high800 – 1,000 hours
 
Lowbushmore than 1,000 hours
 

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Chilling requirement of the five blueberry types — hours below 7 °C needed to break winter dormancy. Source: chapters 2 and 15 of the book and the literature cited there.

Within the types the differences are greater still: the cultivar ‘Chickadee’ needs roughly 100 hours, ‘Climax’ 400, ‘Tifblue’ 600 – 700 and practically every Northern Highbush cultivar 800 to 1,000. That is why the catalogue gives, for every cultivar, the chilling requirement, cold hardiness, pollination requirements and picking time — and explains in its introduction why a “late” cultivar of one type ripens earlier than an “early” cultivar of another.

Who this book is for
  • For anyone whose blueberry is languishing in the garden without an obvious reason
  • For anyone choosing their first bush — and wanting it to survive their particular winter
  • For growers who want firm fruit that lasts all the way to the customer
  • For everyone curious about what really goes on inside a berry
What you will not find in this book

Blueberries: Everything in One Place is neither a glossy cookbook nor a superfood pamphlet. Every statement in it rests on cited literature, and the content has been reviewed. If you are after a quick guide full of recipes, or promises of miraculous effects on eyesight, this is not the book. If you want to understand why your bush does what it does, you are in the right place.

The book has been published as an electronic publication (PDF) in its first edition, ISBN 978-80-975423-7-5, and is available in our online shop — in English as well as German, Slovak and Czech.

Blueberries: Everything in One Place

Add this book to your library and get to know the blueberry down to the smallest detail — from the genes to the freezer.

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The download link for the book will be available once your order has been paid in the online shop.