“Our early varieties are starting to bear right now,” said Mark Gaskell, a farm adviser for the University of California Cooperative Extension Service in Santa Maria, Calif. Southern high-bush blueberry cultivars available to the home grower that do well along the central California coast, like Sharpblue, Gulf Coast, Marimba and Georgia Gem, bear fruit from February through June, he said.  Up at Nasami Farm, a native plant nursery in Whately, Mass., run by the New England Wild Flower Society, low-bush blueberries are preferred to high-bush ones because they can take the cold and do well in sandy, low-nutrient soil.  “The flavor is more intense — the smaller fruits have a little extra sugar,” said Ron M. Wik, the Wild Flower Society’s nursery business director. “As long as they get a good six hours of sunlight, they’re fine. We have them growing on a green roof installation in downtown Boston,” at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Nasami Farm’s most popular blueberry plants include Earliblue, Patriot, Blueray, Bluecrop and Chandler, Mr. Wik said.  But no matter where you are, the trick is acid soil — with a pH between 4.5 and 5.0 — with plenty of drainage. And don’t overfertilize. Those are the lessons I learned one euphoric afternoon in early March, from Jim and Bethany Plyler. They grow about 1,000 blueberry bushes — high, low and in between — along with other native plants at Natural Landscapes Nursery (www.naturallandscapesnursery.com), in West Grove, Pa. Mr. Plyler, a former landscaper and ecologically minded farmer, started the 44-acre nursery 22 years ago, and 14 years later teamed up with his wife, who has a master’s degree in botany.  He is partial to the high-bush blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum. “It’s a four-season plant,” he said, standing in one of his fields, where about 500 of the red-stemmed bushes marched down wide, raised beds.  Consider the high-bush blueberry in winter: the deep red stems catch the eye under a gray sky. By May, those delicate branches will be loaded with nodding bell-shaped flowers, reminiscent of lily-of-the-valley, that open pink and turn to white, and smell like jasmine. In June, after bumblebees pollinate the flowers, the berries will begin to turn from green to violet to dark blue. And by July, the feast begins.  “Why not grow the biggest, sweetest berries?” said Mr. Plyler, who also likes V. corymbosum’s many cultivars, known for their large fruit. The Plylers have had great success with Collins, which ripens in early June; Bluejay and Blueray, which bear fruit by the Fourth of July; and Jersey, which ripens a couple of weeks later. “Last year, we got 10 to 20 pounds per bush,” he said. “The plants were so loaded they couldn’t hold their branches up.”  The Plylers also grow V. angustifolium, a low-bush blueberry with a cycle of white flowers, blue berries and crimson foliage that is just as striking as that of its high-bush cousin.  Northcountry, a cross between high and low species developed by the University of Minnesota, and Sunshine Blue, a Southern beauty that sports pink flowers and grows to only three feet, also flourish here.  Blueberry plants will bear more profusely, Ms. Plyler said, if you grow two or more cultivars to increase cross-pollination. It’s nice to plant them in groups of three or five, to create a pleasing asymmetry. And if you have the space, 25 to 50 plants, spaced four to five feet apart, will allow for “serious eating,” she said. Deer and birds like to share, so some people cover their plants with netting.  If you don’t have much space and you’re wondering where on earth to put them, it’s good to know that blueberries will flourish in pots, the larger and deeper the better. Try some of the low-growing varieties, like Top Hat, Northcountry and Northsky, or shorter forms notable for their fall color, like Burgundy, Claret and Jonesboro. A mix of potting soil, peat or fir bark and enough sulfur to achieve the right acidity should get them off to a good start. Don’t overwater, and don’t let them dry out. With proper pruning, high-bush cultivars do well in pots too.  But if you have a yard, as Mr. Plyler noted, “there isn’t anything better to do with a piece of lousy lawn than plant blueberries.”  The first step is to kill the grass. Otherwise, the tough rhizomes will just send more grass up into your blueberry beds. Gardeners not averse to herbicides could use Roundup (glyphosate), one of the most benign herbicides, which breaks down quickly in the soil. Wait a few weeks, then dig or till plenty of peat moss or composted pine bark into the soil to improve drainage and help acidify it. Adding elemental sulfur will also make an alkaline soil more acidic.  Organic gardeners can kill the grass by covering it with layers of newspaper, and then mulching with acidic materials like pine needles, composted oak leaves or shredded pine bark. But that takes months, so don’t plan on planting blueberries until the fall.  Mr. Plyler kills the weeds a year in advance, applying glyphosate several times, and then improves the soil and plants in the spring. If you don’t have that luxury — or the patience — go ahead and plant. You just may be doing a bit more weeding throughout the season.  The Plylers plant their high-bush shrubs in raised beds, at least a foot deep, which ensures good drainage. The fluffy soil also encourages the plants, which are relatively shallow-rooted, to reach deep into the soil for nutrients.  I figure I have more than a month to kill the grass and get my soil ready for blueberries. Then I’ll head to the native plant sale at the Delaware Nature Society in May in my old blue Dodge Ram to pick up a couple dozen plants, half high-bush, half low-bush, and maybe a few in between.  NATURAL Landscapes, a wholesale nursery, supplies the Delaware Nature Society’s native plant sale, held at Coverdale Farm, 543 Way Road, in Greenville, Del., on May 3 and 4 (www.delawarenaturesociety.org/nps.html).  The New England Wild Flower Society’s Nasami Farm, in Whately, Mass., has a large variety of blueberry plants, including Burgundy, named for its fall color, and Friendship, a half-high type good for small gardens. The farm is open to the public eight weekends in the spring, Thursday through Sunday, from April 17 through June 8; it reopens for the same long weekends Sept. 4 and closes after the first weekend in October. The farm’s plants are also sold at Garden in the Woods, the society’s public garden in Framingham, Mass. (508-877-7630; www.newfs.org).  Online sources include Wayside Gardens (800-213-0379; www.waysidegardens.com), which sells Darrow, a prolific high-bush type, and Sunshine Blue Dwarf, especially suited to containers; and Edible Landscaping (800-524-4156; www.ediblelandscaping.com) and Forestfarm (541-846-7269; www.forestfarm.com), both of which carry about a dozen different cultivars.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page F6 of the New York edition with the headline: A Sisterly Rivalry, Leading Directly to Pies. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Cultivated blueberries can be grown just about anywhere, as long as you get the soil right and don’t let the plants dry out.