How Does Your Garden Grow?

[Mikey D]

Strawberry advice please, does anyone have a decent strawberry planter , The pictured one was £17 from Asda Its tiny about 10" tall and frankly crap .... I want a decent one but don't want to spend loads.
There is a local pottery maybe they could knock one up for me ? ???

 

[Mikey D]

Come on guys where's allthegardners ? Well this poor excuse of a pot it's not even real terracotta FFS will get used for erbs ( gotta love the Merkins and their missing H's )
Looked on Etsy and it's about £60 for a real size terracotta one but will see if the local pottery place could do one .....

 

[slim_boy_fat]

....but will see if the local pottery place could do one .....

I'd not expect them to be cheap, economies of scale and all that.

 

[DanZac]

Come on guys where's allthegardners ? Well this poor excuse of a pot it's not even real terracotta FFS will get used for erbs ( gotta love the Merkins and their missing H's )
Looked on Etsy and it's about £60 for a real size terracotta one but will see if the local pottery place could do one .....

I had a couple of those strawberry Tower things over the years. Both a little one and a bigger one and they were rubbish.

I found it was almost impossible to water the lower plants properly. You can't get the water in through the troughs and if you water from the top, the tops waterlogged while the bottom plants are still too dry.

In my opinion your better off either planting straight in the ground, making a raised bed or using growbags.

 

[Onoff]

Stack of old tyres and wedge some pvc pipe off cuts in them?

 

[DAPPH]

Strawberry advice please, does anyone have a decent strawberry planter , The pictured one was £17 from Asda Its tiny about 10" tall and frankly crap .... I want a decent one but don't want to spend loads.
There is a local pottery maybe they could knock one up for me ? ???
View attachment 346941

16 years ago I was given FOC a big blue food grade barrel , I cut 90 X 3 inch holes one every 6 inches up round the circumference in a spiral line so no two were directly in a vertical line from the bottom 6 inch ring of holes to just below the rim , with a hole saw in calculated spirals of 9 high , bent D shaped pieces of plastic thick WPM membrane & inserted one in each hole to make a cup/spout/ support . Drilled a 3 inch rain pipe some 4 foot long every 4 inches from a stopped bottom small holes every 90 degrees in rings up to the soil top and got to 6 mm at the upper end so I could nutrient water each day and the whole barrel got a reasonable level of moisture .
Once filled & planted up on a stand it stayed put for three years till I cleaned it out , refilled & replanted it. We've had some fantastic crops out the barrel .

I stopped using it about six years ago when my spinal problems got worse & I couldn't empty or refill it easily & passed it on to a small holder friend of ours .

Filling the barrel was done using my cement mixer to evenly mix a filing from , sharp sand , well composted pig , cow & chicken muck manure a couple of buckets of mica insulation granules & verve ( B&Q) compost as the filler .


EDIT .
I like the idea of On /Off's, to use 3 " rain pipe cut at 45 degrees to make the spouts under each plant , they only need to be 3 inch long slices .

Note .
Strawberries are biennial's they fruit in the second flowering season .. some growers recommend pulling half the flowers off the crop early on in th first season so they regrow all new flowers , this supposedly gives you some fruit in first year & every year forwards , you will have some fruits each year .

Now I grow my strawbs in 30 litre tubs @ four plants per tub , I've ended up taking cuttings every year , growing them on in the glasshouse till the end of Feb to overcome the biennial gap & I still renew the growth medium and plants at the end of the end of the third cropping season to stop strawberry sawfly infestation build up's killing the crops .

 

[Onoff]

16 years ago I was given FOC a big blue food grade barrel , I cut 90 X 3 inch holes every 6 inches up from the bottom to just below the rim .with a hole saw in calculated spirals of 9 , bent D shaped pieces of plastic thick WPM membrane & inserted one in each hole to make a cup/spout/ support . Drilled a 3 inch rain pipe some 4 foot long every 4 inches from a stopped bottom small holes every 90 degrees in rings up to the soil top and got to 6 mm at the upper end so I could nutrient water each day and the whole barrel got a reasonable level of moisture .
Once filled & planted up on a stand it stayed put for three years till I cleaned it out , refilled & replanted it. We've had some fantastic crops out the barrel .

I stopped using it about six years ago when my spinal problems got worse & I couldn't empty or refill it easily

Filling the barrel was done using my cement mixer to evenly mix a filing from , sharp sand , well composted pig , cow & chicken muck manure a couple of buckets of mica insulation granules & verve ( B&Q) compost as the filler .
I line the idea of On /Off's to use 3 " rain pipe cut at 45 degrees to make the spouts

Do me a sketch pls!

 

[DAPPH]

Might have a photo somewhere in the 40 thousand or so on my 500 G stand alone hard drive.

To mark the horizontal bands I cut a baton just shy of the top marked it every six inches from the bottom screwed a bit of baton onthe bottomend to make and L then cut it off at the top mark , put a pmarker pen onnthe barrel whilst against nthe to pf nthe baton and ran it round th ebarel to make the top ring . then cut off six inches and repeated the exercise till I got th bottom ring done
The vertical's were done by using a spiritl level to mark one place bottom & top . Divide the top barrel circumference by nine & write it down , do the same with the bottom circumference again divide by nine & write it down .

From the single master vertical line use dividers to mark off the nine measurements for top & ( different for ) bottom rims then use a wide ( ish ) straight strip of carboard to join the dots to put in all the verticals


Then it's a simple case of mark alternate crossover points of horizontal & verticals and move the lower one to the right one crossover point so the hole are staggered and look like a spiral of holes.

Just had a recall , lightly plug the holes from inside the barrel as you fill it up , with some 4x4 strips of old cut up hanging baskets rubberized coir or breathable foam sheet / gymn mat ....or anything else that might work , with a + cut planting slot cut in it , to stop the growth medium being accidently lost through the planting hole .

Oh forgot to add you can plant the top of the barrel with strawbs as well .

 

[DanZac]

View attachment 347021
Might have a photo somewhere in the 40 thousand or so on my 500 G stand alone hard drive

That gives me a few ideas for an old plastic dustbin that I keep tripping over and have been meaning to skip for ages.

 

[DAPPH]

I see your tag says General Dogsbody & Professional Potterer .. is that last bit about playing with clay and a kiln or just pottering about ?

 

[DanZac]

I see your tag says General Dogsbody & Professional Potterer .. is that last bit about playing with clay and a kiln or just pottering about ?

Just pottering around. I'm far to unartistic and unskilled to do anything with clay.

 

[Mikey D]

@DAPPH thanks for your excellent and in-depth description / sketch of your strawberry planter the verticle pipe? On the left is it 4" or would 6" soil pipe be better ?
Would it need a few holes with gravel over at the bottom for drainage so the bottom strawberry don't get waterlogged? Or not necessary ?
Can the planter be left out all year or is it better situated in greenhouse ??
I have 6 plants from rural roadside honest box type arrange ment £5 for 6 plants
Thanks so much for your help !

Cheers Mike

 

[Onoff]

Shifted a third of the sleepers yesterday afternoon to up near the planned veg plot area. Did with a sack barrow / ratchet strap one end and set of random wheels the other.

Just to the 'staging" area off the grass so I can pick the best ones etc and generally sort them.

Torrential rain last night so the rest will be heavier today!

 

[snoozer]

Just about to start up a Herb Garden, Wish me luck

 

[Mikey D]

I'll be watching with interest re the herbs

 

[DAPPH]

@DAPPH thanks for your excellent and in-depth description / sketch of your strawberry planter the verticle pipe? On the left is it 4" or would 6" soil pipe be better ?
Would it need a few holes with gravel over at the bottom for drainage so the bottom strawberry don't get waterlogged? Or not necessary ?
Can the planter be left out all year or is it better situated in greenhouse ??
I have 6 plants from rural roadside honest box type arrange ment £5 for 6 plants
Thanks so much for your help !

Cheers Mike

My barrel pipes were a mere 3 inchs in diameter of down pipe stopped and sealed at the bottom end , filling them up twice in the morning & twice at night using a watering can with Tomorite at tomato fruiting strength once the first flowers are set to berries.
so two 2.5 gallon cans per barrel twice a day was my watering regime .

Another barrel I did had a cup of dried blood fish & bone meal put in the mixer to enrich the growth medium being made , they were fantastic strawbs .
Standing the barrel a 18 inches or more off the ground on clean bricks before you fill it up helps stop cats spraying & dogs peeing on the lower fruits & saves you backache when picking .

As the bottom of the bottom holes are three inches from the bottom of the barrel , any over flow / drainage runs out the holes , the wetter bottom 3 inches is soon drawn up into the fiberous growth medium fillings and by the fine root hairs of the strawberries.

 

[DAPPH]

As I said the plants will most likely be biennials pluck all the first flowers of half the plants for a week or so , it fools the plant into thinking it is approaching a new second season when it produced the new set of flowers .
Come the end of July think about pegging any longish runners at a leaf node into soil , keep them watered for 14 days or so . Sever or lift one off the soil l it should have the start of a root system where you pegged it to the soil . If so sever the rest and pot them all up .

Another way of getting plants ....find the biggest sweetest strawberry you can from a supermarket or farm shop etc. Bring it home , carefully slice the seeded skin off it . Mush the skin in half a glass of water , pour it into a wide mouthed screw top bottle . Vigorously agitate it twice every day for five days . pour out the stuff into a glass & gently run a trickle of water in the glass of mush whilst gently stirring it with a teaspoon so the dead softer cells are washed out from the seeds .
Once the glass water is reasonably clear you'll see oodles of tiny seeds in the bottom pour off as much water as you can then dry them on a plate in the airing cupboard for 48 hrs .

Putting them on tissue paper to dry sounds good but they stick to it ......guess how I know . Sow the dried seeds thinly in plant pots on a seed grade compost with the thinnest covering of very fine sieved ( flour sieve out the kitchen ) compost over them .
Keep them trigger spray moist & out of strong sunlight & before long you'll have zillions of new plants to play with . Usually the fruit from the home harvested seeds is as good as the original strawberry.

 

[DAPPH]

@DAPPH thanks for your excellent and in-depth description / sketch of your strawberry planter the verticle pipe? On the left is it 4" or would 6" soil pipe be better ?
Would it need a few holes with gravel over at the bottom for drainage so the bottom strawberry don't get waterlogged? Or not necessary ?
Can the planter be left out all year or is it better situated in greenhouse ??
I have 6 plants from rural roadside honest box type arrange ment £5 for 6 plants
Thanks so much for your help !

Cheers Mike

WRT barrels , mine were out doors all year round so I got a strong mid crop boost .

I have six 30 litre tubs of over wintering strawbs in the now unheated glasshouse on the top trays of three hostess type stainless steel trollies . Since the end of April watered by an automatic timed micro misting spray head system .

This year they start flowering mid march & giving six or so reasonable fruits between them each day from mid April . The outdoor tubs we now have have just started flowering

 

[Onoff]

47/50 beans:

Shifted all the sleepers:

Unscrewed / cut off the screws in them:

Each is nom 2.6m long. The veg patch will thus be nom 5.2m wide.

 

[Onoff]

The rough plan is this:

Level sleepers surrounding the beans. A 25mm square box section frame, put together with 3D printed connectors. This to be meshed over to deter the rabbits, deer, pigeons etc but let the pollinators through.

Then a close spaced, 2 copper wire "loop" attached to a battery, possibly solar charged. This for a slug/snail barrier as seen all over YouTube.

Not sure how the stripped copper wire will fare as in going green and tarnishing? Periodic cleaning?

Maybe too a 25x3 copper strip all the way round the base frame as well. Or do away with the wires and have 2 copper strips on the vertical side with a slight gap between and connect that to the battery?