Friday 27 April 2012

Strawberry Runners into Plants

Not wanting to buy any new Strawberry plants this year, last year I decided to pot up some Runners from the 'Alice' Strawberry plants I bought. Luckily all four plants grew really well and were eventually individually potted up for over wintering, during our colder months in my little greenhouse.

                                                                     Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: 15 April 2012

Winter is now over and the runners have established into great new plants with health leaves, so a couple of weeks ago (late April) these were potted up into their final growing places, two hanging baskets with two plants in each. The baskets were lined with new moss and new vegetables compost was added, with a few water crystals to help with watering.

                                                                    Photo: Laura Lunt  Date: 15 April 2012

These already a few flowers showing, so hopefully I'll have some Strawberries in early summer, ready to pick and eat.

Spring Tidy Up - April

A few weeks ago I managed to get out onto the Balcony, the sun was even shining, and do my spring tidy up after the mild winter we've had. I wanted to create a lot more space, as it seems the balcony has been taken over by a lot of garden waste, so I started with this first. I've been collecting a couple of bags of waste, old soil, leaves, so these were the first to go.

Next was the greenhouse. I've had this for a few years now and you can tell as its looking a little old, but its still handy to have. Its plastic cover was ripped to pieces, this has gone, so now it can be made better use of, by using it as shelves for the smaller potted plants. The inside of the greenhouse was cleared out, so old pots and canes were sorted out, stacked and generally tidied up into a smaller area.

For the Balcony itself, this had a good brush and clean, as lots of dead leaves and debris had managed to cover the balcony floor. Pots were then moved around to create more space and I also came up with an inventive way to help with watering some of the larger pots, by creating some homemade water holders out of all plastic bottles, these were added to the Onion and Garlic large grow bags.

Vegetable wise, the netting on the Garlic and Onions was removed and packed away, to give the vegetables a chance to grow naturally and continue to flourish in their final months. I also noticed that I've managed to lose quiet a lot of the cabbage plants I had re-potted, I'm down to just 6 now, which does come in handy for space, as the Brussels Sprouts are really to be placed outside, but it is a shame as I may have planted them out too early.