Peat moss is very slow to break down. It contains some nitrogen and should not affect much at all except making a nice soil conditioner. As far as ph goes, unless your soil is already quite acidic, I don't see a problem. My own soil tended to be slightly alkaline so it ended up about perfect with a high addition of peat moss.

My Agway doesn't usually carry the Agway beand pine bark mulch, but they will special order on request (and deliver it to my door to boot!). It generally needs to be screened through a 1/4" or a 1/2" screen to remove the large pieces. I then sift it with a fine mesh to remove the dust, although this step's not strictly necessary if you're making 5:1:1. Also, try to remove as much of the sapwood as you can. I make up small batches with 5 gallons, 1 gallon, 1 gallon of the raw materials (+ 1/4 cup each of lime and CRF) - each 3 cu. ft. bag will give me 2 or three such batches. With regard to outdoor storage - in theory, it might be a little better to keep it dry indoors, but I don't think it really makes a difference. Look at it this way, if you waited until spring to order it, it would spend the winter outdoors at the distributor's yard. -Alex

1. Generally was goint to tell you to stay away from Patriot. I had heard that it is often virussed and doesn't produce and doesn't live very long (and can kill off other nearby blueberries (However, when I went looking on web, I couldn't find any reference to verify what I just stated). I planted blueberries multiple times with no success, until I learned to dig a wide hole (3 times root ball, but no more than 1 inch deeper than top of ball. Mix the soil 50% soil, and 50% peat moss). There may be other ways to do it, but this is nearly surefire. The type of mulch isn't nearly as important as keeping a deep layer of mulch to keep the berry plants evenly moist. Look into somekind of irrigation (for at least the first few years or so). I used a soaker hose looped around the plants. As to mulch depth, I once heard a recommendation for sawdust mulch for blueberries that recommended 8 inches of mulch.

Thanks for all of the advice. Yes, ordinarily you would think that the trees and shrubs would be suffering at this point, but pines fines are so "fine" that the movement of water and air is never a problem. Also, this larger material was likely planted when there was still real mineral soil close at hand. There doesn't seem to be too much mulch built up around the collars or crowns of these plants, at least not enough to hinder thier growth, but there is MORE than enough to prohibit normal growth of perennials and groundcover. Its near impossible to get these to establish properly towards the front of the beds. Plants that spread by runners or rhizomes or never have access to actual soil- they just hang on as long as they can in a mixture of pine bark and a bit of compost that I've incorporated over the last few years. So, I'll just remove as much as possible i suppose and maybe even topdress with mineral topsoil.