Propagation of strawberry plants
16.5 years ago strawberries
My strawberries have stopped producing berries and now have started send runners all over the place. During the berry growing season I would pinch them off to let the plants use their energy creating delicious berries. Now those runners are not really doing any harm I have decided to let some of them live and propagate them into some small plant trays.
I grow my strawberries in the open end of cinder blocks and the rest of my vegetable garden is surrounded by gravel so not really any place for them to go, with the exception of taking over my vegetable garden. Given they will not grow in gravel and I like vegetables in my vegetable garden I have redirected them into some plant trays (ironically the same ones I brought the plants parents home in) filled with potting mix. All you do is simply put the end of the runner in the soil and it will do the rest. To keep the runner from popping out of the soil, the normal convention is to create a U-shape with a paperclip to hold the runner in place underground, for whatever strange reason I couldn’t find any of these anywhere in my house I opted for bent bamboo skewers. After about a week you should have your very own baby strawberry plants at this time you can cut the “umbilical” cord from the mother plant. Now the next question is where I am going to put these new plants…guess I need to make a new garden bed or find some friends that want some strawberries next year.
Tags: led, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, vegetables
Propagating peppermint and lemon verbena
16.5 years ago lemon verbena, peppermint, strawberries
Starting next week I will have an office at work with a window so of course I have to start thinking about what sort of vegetation I can put on that ledge. The first thing that came to mind was peppermint and lemon verbena seemed like a good choice since they provide an excellent fragrance and I can eat/drink them if I have to stay late and get tired of free soda. They can also be neglected for a weekend or brief vacation without relying on someone else to take care of them.
Unless this is the first post of mine you have never read or didn’t look at the title of this blog, I am cheap. I could have easily just payed $4-5 for a couple plants but I wanted to do this for free. First I prepared two terracotta pots with a mixture of potting soil and perlite and got the mixture about as wet as possible and set them aside.
For the peppermint, the process to propagate is pretty simple. The stuff is tough and most talented people can not successfully kill the stuff if they try, so dig around in your existing peppermint until you find a good bunch of roots. Now the tricky part pull/cut/tear/scream whatever it takes to separate that clump of peppermint from the rest. Very obvious why this stuff can take over a bed. Take that clump of roots with hopefully some of the peppermint plant still surviving the extraction ordeal and place in a pre-dug hole and cover up with potting mix.
The lemon verbena is a little calmer process, to propagate this you use a process of taking a softwood cutting, which includes simply cutting a stem in which shows some decent life (green) in it. You want to make sure that your cut does not crush the stem so a sharp knife my work better than shears/scissors but that depends completely on the quality and sharpness of your equipment. Cut off any leaves on the bottom one third of the plant and place in potting mix leafing the remaining two thirds above the soil line.
Both of these plants currently have a pretty fragile root system at the moment so keeping their roots (or soon to be generated roots) moist is very important. To help with this I have covered both plants with plastic, if all goes well I will not kill these things and will have a nice addition to my new office come Monday.
Tags: cheap, led, outdoor plants, pepper plants, peppermint plant
Strawberries in the garden
16.6 years ago indoor growbox, strawberries
Strawberries thrive here in the Pacific Northwest but this year the June bearers almost missed their month this year with some of the erratic weather we have had during the past couple months. Last year I planted about a half dozen June bearing plants in the holes of the cinder blocks that surround my raised bed. We got enough strawberries to keep our oldest daughter satisfied for an occasional snack but still had to supplement from the grocery store to satisfy her strawberry habit and with the rising produce prices I let the let some of the runners spread to their neighboring cinder block holes and some cases transplanting the start to a more appropriate location. A couple months ago I also planted some different varieties of Everbearing strawberries to provide fruit throughout more of the summer.
The normal life cycle of a strawberry plant is 3 years. The first year will consist of plant growth where you should see a decent number of strawberries but not as much as the second year. My second year plants are about a foot tall and have dozens of large strawberries growing on them. I have been cutting any runners that shoot out to allow the plant to spend its energy on those delicious berries. The third year the plant’s production will be less and will be spending more of its energy on its runners which is a good time to let those runners turn into new plants and let the cycle repeat. After the plants have finished producing this is the time to fertilize with a balanced fertilizer (10-10-10) otherwise this can lead to excessive leaf growth and less production. Fertilizing at this time will also give the plants the chance to store some much needed energy over the cold winter and have a good head start for the following spring.
Now this morning my oldest daughter was tired of picking strawberries sure it had nothing to do with her picking two and a half pounds of strawberries at Harvold Berry Farm the day before.
Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, vegetables
Science Fair: Why don’t strawberries grow during the wintertime?
16.9 years ago indoor growbox, strawberries
My 6 year old daughter was the inspiration for the PC grow box for her science fair project to figure out why strawberries don’t grow during the wintertime. She started by picking a strawberry plant from our garden (snow still on the ground) and we potted it in a terra cotta pot which she carefully painted ahead of time. We put it in the grow box in our garage with the lights on for 14 hours a day. As she saw significant changes in her strawberry plant we took pictures. After about a month of growing we went through the pictures and she wrote her report explaining the changes.
She definitely had a good time standing by her display proudly telling people about her project and answering any questions that the various visitors had. She did take a break to take a look at some of the other kids displays which I took note of the gardening related ones which would be great for a science projects for any of your budding scientists:
– Seed germination (soil or paper towel)
– How plants grow with different color of lights (colored transparent plastic)
– How plants grow when given different liquids (water, soda, milk, vinager, diet soda)
– Effects of being mean or nice to plants
– Effects of music on plant growth
– Hydroponics
– Effects of temperature on plant growth
Tags: cheap, garden seeds, grow lights, growbox, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, vegetables
Strawberries in the PC Grow box (UPDATE #2)
16.9 years ago indoor growbox, strawberries
The strawberry plant is doing better than I ever expected, should have some fresh strawberries in a week or two. Hopefully no one tells them it is not June…
Tags: cheap, growbox, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, vegetables
Strawberries in the PC Grow box (FINAL UPDATE)
17 years ago indoor growbox, strawberries
Okay, I promise this will be the last time I talk about our strawberry plant in the grow box. After a little more than a month in the grow box our plant went from a small lifeless plant to one that looks like will bear about 10 strawberries. We are planning on moving it to the garden with the rest our strawberry plants later this week to make room for the growing tomatoes.
How strawberry plant looked when we started 40 days ago.
Picture of my daughter showing off her strawberry before she ate the first one.
I sampled on the strawberries and must say I do miss “local” strawberries, looking forward to the rest of them in the next couple months.
Tags: cheap, growbox, led, outdoor plants, strawberry plants, tomato plants, vegetables