The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Fruit => Topic started by: suziequeue on March 12, 2012, 09:28:37 am
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After a :bunny: disaster with our overwintering strawberries, I have ordered some bare rooted strawberries which should arrive this week.
I plan to plant them this weekend but there may be a couple of days between them arriving and me planting them out.
What should be done with them in the meantime?
Should they just be left in the packaging? or put in a bucket of water? Any advice welcome.
Thanks
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going to do the same, will be watching this topic with a keen interest!
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I would do the equivalent of heeling them in ie cover the roots with moist soil. This could be in a bucket or in a spare bit of dug ground. If you leave them in the packaging they tend to start putting up yellow shoots and either drying out or going slimey if too wet. In soil, you can leave them for more than a few days and they are fine.
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My strawberry plants came ages ago when it was cold, so i potted them up into pots, they're in the greenhouse looking quite healthy, what i want to know though is can i put them outside now or because they've been under glass should i wait until after last frosts have gone? I do have some opaque perspex cloches (remants of a sunroom room roof brought back from OH last building project) and plenty of straw to protect them.
Also do i let them crop this year or take all the fruit off so they get stronger for next?
Thanks in advance
Mandy :pig:
ps never done strawberries before always just had bush fruit.
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I think strawberries are quite hardy. I've certainly put mine outside so I shall be interested in any response to Fowgill's question.
My strawberry situation escalated somewhat in that, having ordered the bare rooted strawberries, I then (much to my delight) found all the original lot still had a good set of roots and little nibbled tops.
I've righted those and heeled in the remaining twleve for now. Meant to plant them out in a raised bed this weekend but didn't have enough soil so need to get that sorted.....
Fun fun fun.
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I bought bare rooted strawberries last year and like fleecewife, put them in pots under cover, hardening them off bit by bit. I then placed the pots in the ground & waited until after they had fruited before planting them in a bed. They have done great and I even got new off -shoots for this year.
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Strawberry plants are hardy but the flowers are not. Frosting of the flowers can show up later on as brown, unformed or deformed berries, or simply no fruit.
Like all other plants they will need to be hardened off (ie putting them outside in the day if it's not freezing or very windy, then bringing them back in at night) for a week or so before going out permanently, if they have been kept indoors. This helps the leaves to toughen up before they are exposed to the full force of outdoors - although at the moment outside is like the middle of summer here.
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Will commence hardening off, have a cold frame made out of an old glass sliding door cabinet so will pop them in there and cover with carpet at night.
Thanks peeps for the advice.
Mandy :pig: