Connie - The advice I see from blueberry growers is to use a raised bed for clay soils. You do not need to build any sort of fancy structure. Lots & lots of commercial blueberry operations in Oregon & Washington have mounds of various growing mixtures on top of the native soil. Since blueberries have shallow root systems, you can easily build a big enough mound such that the roots are contained in the mound which is your raised bed. The growing mix allows you to control the pH and water dynamics which are very important. While there is slight variation from blueberry expert to expert, the consensus is pH 4.5 to 5.0 as the ideal range. There are plenty of pictures & descriptions in the book "Blueberries: For Growers, Gardeners and Promoters." I think it is the best $60 dollars you will spend to grow blueberries. Below are a whole series of links to different blueberry resources. While the 5-1-1 mix should work, you may decide on a different mix after a bit more reading. Here is a list of links to a number of free publications that I have found very helpful. I have been growing blueberries in pots very successfully for several years thanks to what I have learned in these & other publications. http://www.extension.org/blueberries http://www.extension.org/pages/30658/blueberry-online-resources-social-media-newsletters-websites-etc http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/pdf/em/em8918.pdf http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/pdf/1422.pdf http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-8207.html http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/12202/ec1304.pdf;jsessionid=34C1D8724B28E1018BFDFB7C8DC84200?sequence=1 http://nysipm.cornell.edu/organic_guide/blueberry.pdf http://berrygrape.org/blueberry/ http://gardening.wsu.edu/library/smfr003/smfr003.htm You are fortunate that there is an excellent blueberry group at Washington State University. I believe you should be able to contact a blueberry person for advice through information found on this link. http://smallfarms.wsu.edu/crops/berries/blueberries.html or your WSU Extension office. http://extension.wsu.edu/locations/Pages/default.aspx For your mole and vole problems, you should find some very useful advice here: http://www.gopherslimited.com/ Good luck with those blueberries! Here is a link that might be useful: Blueberries: For Growers, Gardeners and Promoters

First of all, I'm not a BB expert but I've researched asked many questions on this forum and elsewhere. I have approx. 20 BB plants in containers. Take my advice at whatever it might be worth to you. If you are set on using Azalea soil, consider reading the Dave Wilson Blueberries article (search those 3 terms). They recommend the azalea mix, small to medium bark, and sphagnum peat moss in a 1:1:1 ratio for hot CA weather like yours & mine. I can't attest to the performance (yet) but that basic recipe is sound for holding water and giving a nice low starting pH needed for BB. They also suggest adding CHC (aka COIR in "cube" form) for added water retention. I have several containers in that mix (no chc tho), along with a completely different medium of micro bark and Turface (5:2 ratio). There are pro's/con's of every type mix, so I'll merely suggest that in the Azalea (and any peat based mix) you probably understand you'll need to fully replace the soil in time (years) as it will collapse and the plants will decline for no apparent reason -- some say they go many years in the 1:1:1 DW mix above and they are happy. You should be able to add 1 tbsp/gal of white vinegar to your water at every watering. Finding the "ideal" amount and frequency requires a lot more work to measure media pH which is difficult to do with accuracy anyway (whereas simple water pH strips are fairly good). Adding pH "reducer" products like sulfur are not consistently effective in containers since they require soil micro-organisms to work; when or if they are working is questionable. Adding the vinegar should be fine to reduce the rate at which your medium pH will rise (as it will naturally do over time). Terracota is excellent for container plants (if you can afford them). But *might* be inadvisable for BB for the reason Don stated above. They keep the roots cooler as you've learned, but in doing so allows the soil to dry out faster. If you are committed to watering everyday (or however often it needs it), the TC pots are the way to go even for BB. However, it's safer to use white (or stone colored) plastic containers and shade the container itself from afternoon sun. If you do choose TC you should probably consider adding the CHC as the DW article suggests, to help offset the faster drying (though I myself have had a terrible experience with COIR). Hope this helps.

Pine and Cedar shavings and Pine Needles are not going to significantly affect your soils pH although enough organic matter in your soil will aid in buffering the plants and soil. Start your process with a good, reliable soil test and determine what your current soil pH is and that will aid you in deciding what needs to be done to grow those blueberries. You may well be better off putting your new plants in large pots for a year because it will take some time for the soil where they would go to change to provide the environment they need. Around here the soil is ideal for blueberries because the normally high water table creates anaerobic soil conditions that help make the soil pH ideal and provides sufficient moisture for them and low levels of magnesium help too. Here is a link that might be useful: Montana State University CES

See if you can find Soil & Water dudes to talk to instead of Cooperative Extension. How old is the construction? If it is more than 5 years old, then alkaline leaching has already occurred, and you've got what you've got. My personal experience, living in a lime pocket among an assortment of lime pockets, is that most gardeners have been quite thoroughly brainwashed into thinking anything in the east has to be acidic. It just isn't so. So when confronted with an alternate reality, they come up with excuses. Concrete leaching is a classic. Older concrete doesn't leach, and the leaching doesn't travel much. I don't know how many times I've been told that I should stop liming, and then I will have 'normal' acidic soil. If you want to know how the neighbor grows camellias, go over and ask. And no, my soil doesn't fizz either, and my pH, and calcium numbers are very similar to yours.