Potting Up Strawberries

My Agapanthus plant is finally bursting into colour. it was given to me by an old neighbour that I had known since I was a kid. It has to be over 30 years old. 

It started life in a smallish pot and got moved up every few years until it finally went in the ground under the apple tree. It thrives on neglect, It gets watered very occasionally and that's about it.

I have no idea where the brambles that are growing out of the paved area in front of the sheds have come from, I have cut back some extending growth but it needs pushing back hard and treated with the strongest weed killer I can find, not that any of the new weedkillers actually work, these days.

A check in on how my very late tomatoes are doing, and in the main they appear happy, will I actually get any tomatoes from them this year, who knows once can only try. The remained as seedings far too long but that was because I became ill and spent a week in hospital.  

Strawberry (Fragaria) Elsanta from ...............Fill in details  

A great mid-season Dutch variety that produces a lot of glossy, orange-red fruit with a delicious sweet flavour. Elsanta strawberries, a supermarket favourite, have a long storage life and are less prone to bruising than many other varieties. The juicy berries are available from mid-June to mid-July and are ideal for making your own jams or freezing to enjoy when they are out of season. Height: 20cm (8"). Spread: 30cm (12").

Strawberry (Fragaria) Elsanta Peat Free 9cm pots x 6 

Growing Information

Plant strawberry plants in autumn or late spring in a sheltered, sunny position in well manured, free draining soil. Plant strawberry runners every 45cm (18") in rows spaced at 75cm (30") apart. 

Spread out their roots and place them in the soil at a level where the crown of the plant is just poking above the surface. 

Avoid planting them too deeply as this may cause them to rot. Alternatively try growing strawberry plants in hanging baskets or in specially designed strawberry planters for the patio.

Vermiculite bags which turned out to be a bag in the brown paper sack!

Now that's disappointing, I bought two sacks and when I opened the brown paper sack there is only one!  I will be contacting Marshalls to find out why and hopefully get the other sack I have paid for. 

So into the mix I'm creating for the hanging baskets, is Miracle-Grow Peat Free MPC and Irish Peat Based  MPC 

With a touch of Vermiculite and hydrated Coir 

With some Water retaining crystals 

That's the water retaining crystals on the top of the layered structure 

Out Comes my 600mm long Power Planter and my trusty Ryobi Drill  

I have eyeballed the volume and hope it will be enough, I needed some room in the container for what happens next. 

Me mix it by hand, no way I have been doing it this way way, before the cancer and arthritis  

My now blended mix placed in the bottom of the hanging basket provided by Oakland Gardens was watered so that the water retaining crystals could do their thing and swell and retain water. 

The strawberries look to be two very different ages by the growth difference between the two packs of 3 plants  

The strawberries don't look happy and settled quite yet, but give them a couple of days and I'm sure they will. 

I was being chased by the sunlight which I'm not supposed to be in these days, It was at this point I watered what I had done and went in for lunch. 

Having the pots from the first 3 plants potted up the the first hanging basket it made filling the second basket a whole lot easier and faster as I packed the mix around the hanging basket to be between chains  

 

Somehow that hanging basket has a face!. Second batch of 3 plants unpacked, and they had been heavily watered by the supplier  

Pop the pot out and the plants into a perfect fitting holes, add some compost mix around the join for good measure and my work here was done.

There strawberries look to be much happier in their Hanging Basket. 

Filling The Boundary Beds

Saturday lunchtime on the plot, in the greenhouse away from the cutting wind and the little shower of rain eating a hot Cornish pasty and having a cup of coffee waiting for the rain to stop.

When it did, which was not long after consuming said pasty, I started by shovelling some of the more already decaying woodchips from the pile that have been there for some time and were turning black into the boundary beds.

Next I measured the length of the boundary beds and found the third points and marked the beds with chalk.

Then cut a square in the cardboard and then used the Ryobi Soldering Iron to burnt a hole in the weed membrane under the cardboard large enough for the Power Planter auger.

Ryobi Soldering Iron

I was on my own so could not take a photo of me actually boring the hole, so here is the next best thing a photograph of the Power Planter standing in the hole.

Here it is again, as it nears the 600mm depth, It didn't take long to make the 600mm deep post/ tube hole. I inserted the scaffold tubes in the holes, backfilled and tamped down the soil around them, then completed the task of half filling the beds with the woodchip.

Nice black and rotting down already as it has been in the drop off and pick up area for quite a long time, and is more ideally suited for this than paths.

Having a second cup of coffee, and sitting by the shed I was looking at the posts and thinking I'm going to have to ask Henry if I can borrow his post whacker next time I see him down here, which could be a while as his wife is expecting their second child soon.

I heard the gate go and there was Henry with his son Casper. I asked him if I could borrow it, and after a stroll to his plot and a natter I was soon back on my plot and getting the tops of the four scaffold tubes level (ish)

Midway through the leveling of the post I had just eyed up the first two posts with the whacker on the third and was working it down towards the same level.

I was quite happy with the level, just a shame about the slight lean on the third post.

And that at around 4:30 in the afternoon was when I put my tools back in the car and made my way home. Next visit saved soil and ericaceous compost to be added to the Boundary Beds

Moving Bulbs & Rhubarb Bed 3

A very foggy start to a 8 degree C morning on the allotment, when I arrived Andy was already removing the weeds from bed 13 Bless him. I jumped onto getting the infrastructure for Rhubarb Bed 3 in place. So good to see the new tenants clearing their plot, and our fire chief John was as always happy to help with the burning of the debris. I have high hopes for the new plot holders of Plot 14.

The security guard complete with his dew covered cob webs looked on as I worked on the Path and Rhubarb Bed 3

I spent most of the morning working on the path between Rhubarb Bed 2 and what will be Rhubarb Bed 3. So much Couch Grass and Bind Weed was removed

I noticed something move out the corner of my eye and the security guard wasn't the only thing watching me this morning.

Once I had got half a forks depth past the edge of the path between Rhubarb Bed 2 and 3 I levelled and removed two square buckets of good top soil laid weed membrane, then filled with woodchips from the pile in the corner of plot. Compacted with the flat of the rake then carried on with the digging and weeding of the paths and Rhubarb Bed 3

Every fork load of soil brought up a clump of couch grass and bindweed roots and in all today I have removed about four rubber trug loads of weeds from and area 1.2m x 1.2m or 4ft x 4ft.

Andy and I removed the top of the blue barrel with the circular saw and turner it upside down near to The Dalek Army on Plot 1

The top of the blue barrel made a perfect fitting lid to the cut down carrot water butt and will mean I will not have to leave it covered with the Dalek which can be moved in with the rest of his mates on plot 1

Made to measure!

Andy cleared the weeds off this bed and removed a staggering amount of169 bulbs, that are to be moved to a new home. The blue hoops were straightening out and have been put in and around the leaf bin to assist them in forming the shape I need for cages in spring 2022. The level of the leaves has dropped dramatically over the week.

Andy cleared the front of the plot and trimmed back the overhanging brambles and hawthorn then using the drill and 3" 75mm PowerPlanter started planting the bulbs for a some early colour and food for the bees on the plot.

Man (Andy) kneeling on the old boys (my) kneeling stool ,and machine, Ryobi Drill and 3" 75mm Power Planter in perfect Harmony. There are so many bulbs left and I have 100 daffs in the shed, that I will need to get down to the allotment this week to get them in the ground as they are wanting to grow.

Then it was time to go home so I laid the weed membrane back down gathered the tools and Andy and I left the plot for the day. I have to say I enjoy the company on the plot when my Son-In-Law comes to help me, and I also get more completed in a morning.

Potatoes In Buckets

Sunday morning on the allotment, mixing compost and coir with a little potato fertiliser for four buckets of three different varieties of first early spuds with four number in square flower buckets topped off with the bottom of baking trays to stop the fox from digging them out and undoing all my hard work. A thank you to Daughters Emma and Kelly and son-in-law Andy for assisting me getting a load more paving blocks down to the allotment late afternoon.

1 row of Permier - Mr Fothergill's
1 row of Home Guard - Dobies
1 row of Acoustic - Mr Fothergill's
All New Varieties of First Early spuds.

Bottom of baking trays put on top to prevent the foxes from digging around in the buckets

Coir Block in trug before breaking it down with the paving weeder and adding the Wickes New Multi-Purpose Compost and the potato fertiliser 

Wickes New Peat Free Multi Purpose Compost looked good but then I read it has coir in there anyway! no information about what percentage is added but it would be interesting to know.

According to the back of the sack on a scale of 1 (Low) to 9 (High) for Nutrients this compost is a 6-7 and contains the right level of balanced food with which to nourish plants for up to 4 or 5 weeks after planting, good thing I laced it with slow release potato fertiliser.

600mm long Power Planter 75mm auger made fast work of mixing the potato slow release fertiliser that was sprinkled on top and the coir and Wickes compost. Mixing loose coir and compost is the one job I will do with a drill without a steadying handle, plus I forgot to take the Ryobi drill with me.

After mixing 

A Meerkat has appeared on the plot on a hillock of woodchips near the entrance!

The Malling Juno Raspberries (Spring) from D.T.Brown are taking off there are still a couple that look like dead twigs but I'm hoping all 6 in each variety all take.