If drainage is a problem, you can use sand if you create mounds for the plants using a great deal of sand. A little sand can actually make things worse from research I've seen, but if you use something like a third sand by volume, mixed with a third peat and a third soil and create the mounds with this it should work fine. If you make such a mix without building mounds you may create bath tubs that fill with water and drown roots. You can also grow them in pots mixing 50/50- sand to peat and put them half way into existing soil- or make a mix with ground pine bark that is aged for the purpose (this is harder to find but more often used in blueberry production). If you set up a drip system or water them consistently, blueberries grow very well this way, if you put them in big enough pots. 5 gallon pots would support mature plants pretty well. Is your soil clay? Do you know the texture of your soil? This is something that is not at all obvious and people often are confused about the texture of their soil. This is also where your county cooperative extension can provide better advice than you can get on-line- although there are simple tests using dishwater detergent to get a general reading on your soils composition. Drainage is easier, because you can figure out how long it takes to drain after heavy rains or dig a hole and fill it with water several times. Not sure of the exact procedure but it is an easy search for details.

Thanks to both of you for the similar suggestions. I did sweep a lot of it off yesterday (it was a dry day). It remains to be seen if the leaves die off much or not. And it's raining right now, so it's being washed as I type this. I have used vinegar as a weed killer. Techically it's a weak acid (unlike HCl). In theory, if you had a dilute enough solution, it might work, but...somewhat acidic rain will probably have a similar effect! Regardless, water is a good buffer, so we'll see what happens.

When a concrete path is really old like in this other garden, which guess I should call garden B, is breaking off pieces and cracked, which I would think would expose new surface area to the elements and create bad alkaline conditions near it. But, if unbroken, I assume it would leech up to a point then stop leeching. I am not sure about this, but it sounds right. But, older concrete always breaks and crumbles due to weathering.

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.