fruitnut: no problem, I am not even sure if blueberries are able to uptake heavy metals. I know they are indifferent to aluminum. Was just wondering about the runoff from the potted plants. About lead in IroniteÂyes I have heard that. I will not use it because of that fact. It might be safe for a lawn, but suppose next year you want to put a garden there, or use the clippings for mulch. Which leads me to olpeaÂs comment; yes most industrial grade agents contain some heavy metals and possible PBBÂect. Just how many PPM would depend on the manufacture, and with most industrial liquids made in China or Mexico where product safety is the last thing on their mindsÂÂah I would just pick up some sulfur as opposed to sending battery acid out for lab analysis. I mean hey, I am feeding this stuff to my kids and eating it myself....so cost plays second fiddle, to safety IMHO.

Aggressive pruning won't hurt them at all. Think about a blueberry growing in the wild, they have to endure wind damage, grazing by wild animals, crowding by other plants, etc. I bought some plants this spring that were already leafed out and way too large for the amount of root they had. I cut almost the entire top half of them off before planting and they have already replaced that amount and look fantastic. I think it's better to have a plant that's a bit short and stout rather than just a few long twigs extending up in the air. Fruitnut, I read through the thread on vinegar that you posted, thanks for sharing the link. For the interest of others, I use vinegar on a daily basis now with my new potted plants and I can definitely see an improvement in them. If I use the vinegar treated water today adjusted to a PH of a about 5, tomorrow the soil will be about pH 5.5.....according to my $7 probe meter. If I water one time without the vinegar it will raise the pots to about 6. I have known right from the beginning that vinegar wasn't long term but it's so easy and safe to use that I don't mind. I buy a gallon of the vinegar at Wal-Mart for a few dollars and it lasts for several weeks on my 10 or so first year plants. My plants have never looked chlorotic but the vinegar is helping them. On my larger potted plants which are in their 3rd year, I applied ammonium sulf, one ounce per plant three times this summer and they are in a mix of peat and fir bark mostly and I just water them normally and they all look great. The plants are in wine barrels so you would need to use less than one ounce for small containers. It seems to me that once the plants get an established root system they can handle a higher pH much more effectively. The pH in my large pots is about 6, maybe a bit lower. I have tested my well water with cheap strips a couple times and it's about 7 so I understand this same approach may not work for those with water having a much higher pH. RM

Thank you all for your responses. Cole: I am currently using Gen Hydroponics PH Down, only I'm using the powder form...3 tsp per gallon to drop the PH from 7.2 to 6.5. (it just can't be normal.) My night temps do drop down to about 50, but I have all my plants on 70 degree heating cables plus the flourescent lights are kept on. During the day the greenhouse warms up to 85 or higher. (I did not know that temps could affect PH) Thanks for the suggestion to try bottled water...I'm going to do that today...but if that's the solution there is no possible way I'm buying 10 gallons of bottled water a day for my greenhouse. :) Sleepless: I had not heard of your P of P test? I'm going to try that and see what happens. Brady: battery acid, huh? (yikes!) For a normal person that may be a solution, but for me....I can't even open a can of pop without causing a disaster....imagine me with battery acid in my hands! The big reason I became concerned about my PH (since it is near normal, I never really worried about it before) is because my potatoes had scab last fall, really bad...some sources recommend dropping the PH way down. Then I ordered some blueberries to plant this spring. Then I noticed alot of my plants in the greenhouse were showing signs of chlorosis(?), yellowing and I began to research the whole PH thing. Thats when I discovered that my well-water does not like to be adjusted. I've created my own growing media - 1/4 peat, 1/4 coir, 1/4 dairy compost, 1/4 vermiculite. For damper-offers I throw in a few handfuls of perilite. To tell the truth, I had alot better luck with seed germination last year when I just watered with bliss. Maybe I'm fooling around too much, and trying to play mad scientist.

Our water, last analysis I read, was running bet. 8.3 and 8.5. It got a little better for a while, since they were blending in 20% MWD water. But I think that MWD water is going, or will soon be gone, and we'll be back to right-out-of-the-aquifer. (The wells are right down the hill. I could walk to them in about 10-15 minutes of easy strolling.) The water in the aquifer has to flow through all those layers of ancient seabed to get to where we pump it. ("We" being our Mutual Water District.) And our soil is not clay. Not even remotely. It is, as I said, ancient seabed, and as near as you will ever find to sterile decomposed granite sand. Anything resembling actual topsoil washed down onto the Oxnard Plain, millenia ago (where the topsoil is 6-ft. deep). Up here it has high mineral count all its own, and there is talk of a desal plant to use on some of the most-brackish parts of the acquifer. Any OTHER soil components here have been brought in, bag-by-bag, over the past 25 years.