a mini hugelbed for heather and blueberries

My husband loves blueberries. The kids and I planned to surprise him. We selected a good place for the future blueberry bed: a sunny site at the base of some pine trees. I read that blueberries do not like to have too wet feet, but that they cannot survive drought either. On a permaculture website, I found the solution, a mini hugelbed.   

Trench with branches of wood to keep soil moist

First we dug a trench which we filled up with some branches. This is supposed to keep the soil moist. I was not sure how deep to dig and how many branches to add, but I hope this will do the trick (see photo). Then we removed some of the grass sods along the trench and topped it all up with a more acid compost. There was a bag of fertilizer for rhododendron standing in the shed (when we bought the house), so I used this, moderately mixed up with soil. I also added some sand and pine needles from our garden. Once the plants were inserted in the mounted bed, we covered the bare soil with pine bark chips.

At the garden centre, we found different species of blueberries. We went for four high blueberry bushes, four different varieties in order to spread the harvest and to create more diversity and hopefully resilience. In between, we planted some low blueberry bushes, spring and autumn heather for the bees and bumble bees, and we added some cranberries:

-high northern blueberries (vaccinum corybosum, blauwe bes, Storfrugtet Blåbær): "Elisabeth", "Liberty", "Birgit Blue", and "Darrow"
-European blueberry or bilberry (vaccinum myrtillus, bosbes, almindelig Blåbær)
-common heather (calluna vulgaris, struikhei, hedelyng)  "Loki" (autumn) and "Jysk naturform" (spring)
-spring heath (erica carnea, sneeuwheide - een soort dophei, vår-lyng)  "Challenger" (autumn) and Erica x stuartii "Irish lemon" , a natural occurring hybrid (klokkelyng)
-large cranberry (vaccinum macrocarpon, grote veenbes, storfrugtet tranebaer)

Now, we'll just need to wait and see whether this will work. Later on, I hope to find some small cranberries (vaccinum oxycoccos, kleine veenbes, almindelig tranebaer) to add to this swale.
 

My little blueberry and heather swale

We do not know how many blueberries we will get the first years, but I am sure each of them will be enjoyed with 100%.