I have been sowing seeds lately in the garden, greenhouse and at home. Yesterday we sowed the Swiss chard. After that we cleaned the strawbs up. It was more work than it looked like, but now they are ready to take off. Here is a shot showing the old strawberry bed about half way through the clean-up. Then all done. Food scratched-in and a light sprinkling of compost. The most interesting that I saw was this: Do you recognise it? It is a summer bloomer, the Knautia macedonica !
Gosh that's early to see Macedonica Scabious in flower isn't it? I thought they bloomed much later in the year. Here we don't tend to see them until the end of June/beginning of July. The butterflies and bees adore them.
You are too right. That’s why I posted it— it is so crazy early for it. You are so spot on with when you would expect to see it. The insects over here like them as well.
Well done! I hope the strawberries will give you lots of tasty yummy berries for your efforts. My Knautia died after one of these horrible winters we had. I miss it, but we have plenty of other bee blooms.
That is a pity, Droopy. Did you have only one? I always try and have more than one plant of a sort that I am fond of. Sometimes weather can be so mean.
We had two. They both died. I usually don't have the same plant several places in the garden since I have so many different plants that need space. There are very few exceptions.
Ta Daniel. It has indeed. You know we take gardening seriously, it is more than a hobby. I can see that in your work as well.
@Sjoerd I found this post a little late while searching for strawberries. I have to do a clean up on my bed - I have some 1 year old plants and some oldies that through out runners but do not produce. I've promised myself to give my strawberries more effort and attention this year. I also have some new starts/roots coming in the mail in a month. May I ask...when you cleaned out your bed how did you decide who should stay and who should go? Have you ever moved plants early in the spring to train them to where you would like them to be?
Your quezzy— when I cleaned the bed, I simply left the original plants (there were twenty bought last year snout this time), and removed the rest. It is that simple. I keep strawb plants for two years and then get rid of them. If in the second year, those plants perform in a very exceptional way, then I leave them for a third year. It is my experience that after two years, the strawbs reach their zenith and begin giving smaller fruits. Now I will tell you that over the years, I have tried growing strawberries a number of ways. I used to replace my old parent plants with runners sent out from them. I also let the parent plant stay in the bed and allowed the bed to fill up with runners and continue but found this method the worst. You see, strawberries need to be a certain amount of distance from each other. If a bed is too crowded, all the plants are competing for nutrients and the result is that the plants give less and smaller fruits...and some plants do not make flower buds at all. Right, so I replace my plants regularly. I run two beds of them planted in a staggered fashion so that they are not two years old in the same year. It means that I replace the plants of one bed each year, moving them to a new bed (rotation). There is a strawb specialist within driving distance of me and they are reasonably priced and have a choice in root quality. They will even ship. You may have seen this years frigo’s or last years beauties on an earlier posting. https://www.gardenstew.com/threads/the-strawbs-go-in.42709/#post-394461 Addendum: I have indeed moved runner plantlets to their new beds from the old beds. One can do this by letting them root in the soil or plant them in a small pot, partially buried in the soil. You leave them attached until they have good roots then you leave them in situ but clip the runner, separating them from the mother plant. They ought to be able to nourish themselves by then. Strawberry plants always need to me moist. I hope that you were not put off by my waffling. Good luck.
@Sjoerd - Thank you so much. The link was also very helpful as well. Like you, I have tried starting my own from runners ( nope) , and have allowed the bed fill in from runners ( nopity nope nope). Both did not bode very well and resulted in a lot of work in the end and fewer berries. I was leaning towards what you are saying with replacing every couple to few years. I have always had June berries, but have moved to a everbearing Fort Laramie for the first time this year. They apparently are very hardy in northern climates "used often by commerical growers for their large sweet fruit and cold tolerance"......"and produce many strong runners" ( ugh) hahahaha I will see how it goes. I'm considering putting landscaping fabric between the plants to help with the runners, and weeds from the surrounding fields are a constant issue. Mulch is difficult because I cannot put it on until later in the summer. I'm thinking it will have to be "everyone out of the pool" for my strawberry bed this spring, and then selectively replant. I have definitely been guilty of overcrowding so thank you for that advice. I'll make a conscious effort to space more. I had two wonderful years in this strawberry bed, and it has been a struggle since. I hope it's alright to ask/clarify and not be too much of a pest - when you mention rotating beds, to you mean shifting everyone to the left or right every couple of years? Or do you have a seperate planting area? And if I understood correctily, every year one of your rows is new plants and the other row two years old? Our strawberry bed is about the same size as yours. May I also ask, when you and your Bride planted your precious parcel, how did you find the fruit production on the one year old plants compared to the second or third year? My first years often don't produce much, but that could be from the cooler climate. My survival rate over winter is about 75% from a first plant. Having said that though, I'm going to mulch over winter for the first time this year and hope the mice don't have a hay-day in the hay. Thank you so much for your thoughtful patient reply. I've been sharing it with Hubby who smiles and nods in agreement with this direction Probably because he's been the one mostly attached to the "goon spoon" when we have dug it up many times in the past. We spent a long day last summer clearing brush and trees that may be shading the spot too much, so he is ready for it to be productive again.
G’dai Mel, I am going directly to your questions, but before I do let me make one thing patently clear— you never have to be so careful with asking me questions, just ask. That is what this forum is all about. I mean I know that you are being correct and respectful because you are new here and do not know folks well yet. I appreciate that and find manners always a good thing, but with me I will give you an answer if I have one and if I do not, I will say so. Chuckle. Oké then. Rotating beds: I do not mean shifting rows left or right, I mean moving the whole bed to another quadrant. You saw the piccy of one of my beds up above. The bed has four rows in it, so next year, i will grt rid of all the plants that you see, and next march I will create a new bed of about three rows in a completely different quadrant. You hear me using the word “quadrant”, that is because I have divided my veggie garden into four quadrants and rotate my crops in a clockwise fashion. My strawbs occupy a small portion in each of the quadrants. The strawbs are on a separate schedule than all the other crops additionally, only strawbs are allowed in the strawb sections. Can you make sense of this so far? Second question: As I recall, the first year of strawb production is less than the third year, but what fruits they do yield are of a normal size, my third year fruits are certainly more numerous but disappointingly small. This could have to do with the types that I grow. **What I tried last year was to buy “frigo’s”. Frigo,s have huge roots and are kept in a cooling space. They are adult plants with few leaves, so that you just chuck them into the ground and take care of them until you see the first blushing fruit. Then mulch and net them up with a net with a mesh large enough to let pollinators in. BTW, you can also use some fleece or muslin and hoops to further insulate them during the winter. Here it isn’t necessary, but perhaps it is where you live. One final word is that I find that my strawbs seem to do better if the soil is a bit acidic.
One more pair of nursery fabric containers planted with potatoes - Envol, described as earliest of early. Also a row of Yukon Gem, an early similar to Yukon Gold but described as more disease resistant and more productive. I read a potato growing book which had a hint about making growing bags, that they cN be made from landscape fabric. We have some of that, so it will be an interesting sewing project. I can compare that to growing in trenches. Probably much less work but I don't know about the productivity. Mostly puttering with indoor seedlings. I found another crocosmia clump that is begging to be moved.
