Buying blueberry and lignonberry plants

The Pomona Project: buying and planting berry plants

The Belmont Farmers' Market Committee is launching the Pomona Project to provide homeowners with attractive, interesting, unusual, and easy-to-care-for plantings that are appropriate to the local landscape. Blueberry and lingonberry bushes meet these requirements and as a bonus, produce healthy, edible fruit.

The Belmont Farmers' Market Committee is organizing a group purchase of blueberry and lingonberry plants, with six blueberry varieties and three lingonberry varieties to choose from.

Ordering

The date for orders has passed and pickup was on Saturday, May 1, 2010.

Growing requirements

Both blueberries and lingonberries have very similar growing requirements, preferring acidic soil. If you have rhododendrons or azaleas in your landscaping, then you have the right conditions. If not, it is easy to create conditions for these plants to thrive in a sunny to lightly shaded area.

Growing/planting information

• YouTube video of linonberry planting
• Detailed information on lingonberries
• Growing blueberries in the home garden
• Blueberries for home landscape
  

More about the plants

The delicious fruit that the plants produce--for eating fresh and for pies and jams--is an added bonus for your family or wildlife. Both blueberries and lingonberries are high in antioxidants, beneficial for health.

The taller blueberry varieties will work well as foundation plantings or hedges, and provide attractive foliage that turns red or bronze in fall, and reddish stems in winter that contrast strikingly with snow. The lower-growing lingonberries create an attractive ground cover and have evergreen leaves. They are both suited to our climate and easy to care for.

With the Pomona Project, the Farmers' Market is expanding its community-based activities beyond the summer season, and into edible landscaping. Because of the group purchase, the blueberry and lingonberry plants are competitively priced and will be convenient to pick up. This activity is to assist local gardeners in their landscaping efforts. The BCF will not realize a profit from it.

Why Pomona?

The Pomona Project’s name was inspired by Pomona, the Goddess of Fruits and Gardens, who appears on the Town of Belmont’s official seal, a nod to Belmont’s agrarian past. Belmont was a major market garden center in the late 1800s, with many farms and fruit orchards dotting the landscape.

Download the information sheet and order form (pdf) and send email if you have questions.

Picking up plants