Strawberries


A view down the plot from last week. I did not take a photo of the strawberries! Our strawberry plants were all transplanted over the last couple of years from around the plot as we were digging. I had already said in another post that last year I had repotted the runners from these as we had no idea how old the plants were and 3 years is the optimum life of the plant.
They overwintered in the cold greenhouse and were put out a couple of weeks ago into the fruit bed. Last week I added 6 plants bought in a tray in Aldi which look very healthy and a couple have flowered since then.
I bought:
2x Alice, high yielding mid summer fruiting
2x Christine, early variety (ones in flower)
2x Amelia, late summer fruiting.
I found a reference to Alice in the Garden News ( February 24th) as follows
Alice, a mid season strawberry producing large fruits from mid June onwards.Its a reliable cropper and the plants are strong growing and have good natural disease resistance.
In my reading I came across this advice to take the flowers off early and late cropping strawberries in their first year to ensure bumper crops next year. My only problem with this is we don't know the varieties of our other plants.If the Aldi ones are successful we can take the runners from them and at last have names for the ones that we like.
Feed plants weekly with a high potash feed after flowering to help fruit to swell and ripen.
In the autumn apply a feed rich in potassium as this helps the plant to harden up for the winter and helps setting of flower buds for the following year.

Comments

They look Ok ... may you have basketful of harvest! ... cheers. ~ bangchik
Anonymous said…
I know nothing about strawberries except they taste good. We have a ton of strawberry farms around my part of NC. They usually ripen for harvest around the end of May. I plan on freezing some this year.

I love my kitchen towel. It washed up nicely and feels so good.
Linda said…
I planted strawberries 2 years ago, before I started blogging. I was sure I'd remember the varieties, but that detail has been erased from my mind. Blogging does help nail certain details!

You'll have to report on which variety you prefer.
Peggy said…
Hi everyone thanks for visiting and taking the time to leave comments.
HI Bangchik I visited your blog and will visit again ,you are doing great also!
Flowergardengirl: No need to grow if you can get them on farms,lots to make jam etc and fairly inexpensive too i woulfd hope. Glad you like the teatowel.
Lindab, you always think you will remember small details like that but I know from experience too that I dont.The blog is great for looking back on things.
Tracy Bruring said…
i love strawberries. I planted 10 this year. I can't wait to plant more
Catherine said…
At last I am getting your posts on my feed! I love this one and get some inspiration from it! we have been producing strawbs for the past decade from some Elsanta (sp?) strawbs we got in a garden centre when we put up the polytunnel in 1998. Still producing from the healthy runners we replace every second year or so. Lots of homemade compost in the tunnel. and we grow tomatoes, courgettes, peas and beans as well. Rhubarb outside, not forced, I like the big leaves! Asparagus, that's a challenge requiring patience for a return! Hubby knows it well as it is commercially grown in Holland, specially in the south east. Talk again! I responded to your post over on my post.
Barbarapc said…
Peggy, nothing like fresh strawberries - with or without the cream. I broke down and bought some from California on Tuesday (about 7000kilometers away) - tasted like celery, but boy they were pretty - will just have to wait until June when we have our own berries!

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