What variety of strawberries?

cootambear

kittie wrote: »

cootambear recommended mara des bois last year and I got 12 runners from ken muir in april 2011. They established very quickly and we had strawberries right up to october. I got hooked on strawberries and now have almost 100 plants.

on the allotment
monterey
calypso
cirano

calypso and cirano grown on from a few manky runners from another grower (CB I don`t recommend at all)

At home I have mara des bois (more new runners KM)
gariguette new runners KM
alice from a few poor runners (CB)
lucy
and new runners of monterey and sonata KM

All the strawberries at home are in troughs, tiered planters and now a new system called `table top` from ken muir

I took out last years plants and gently stroked the roots straight and cu toff the bottom if needed, so that they could be planted with the roots straight down as possible, in new compost

The table top system looks very interesting, £45 if bought with the runners and provided with a pvc cover as well as a net cover, so a good multi use system. There are 10 runners in each growbag £2.60) gro sure bags. Two days on and the runners are growing already. I will leave them for 3 years and will be cutting off all runners. Sonata in the top one as it seems quite weather proof. I do have a moisture meter as keeping the moisture just right will be important. Ken Muir is the only grower I will use now, their runners are fantastic and so is their customer care

Lucy is in buckets and I grew a few more from 3 runners. The plants look lovely, so healthy and strong with flower buds. They really do survive this awful wet weather and they just might be the variety that I grow in the allotment in three years time

I have dozens of flowers and have been round several times with a soft make up brush and now have quite a few developing fruits

I have also been able to move most planters and troughs into sheltered positions, which has helped. I left lucy exposed, in order to see how it copes

a lady after my own heart :heart2:

apart from the maras, which I know you love, what is the next tastiest variety you have tasted?

how many flushes of maras did you get?

doubt if I`ll get more than 2 this year due to the crappy spring

elantan

Budget_Gardener wrote: »

I bought a cheap packet of alpine strawberry seeds in a mini propagator (Poundworld or somesuch) a couple of years ago - hundreds of seeds, too many plants to put in the tiny yard, great-tasting strawberries all the way through summer and autumn until the frosts. Can't kill them very easily as they are pretty hardy. Really worth looking for - a different thing in some ways but very rewarding.

i planted these this year as i really fancied them ... but not one has popped it's head through the soil yet

Budget_Gardener

Lots of little plants sounds right - although I planted more this year (same seeds but a bit old now) and they haven't shown so are obviously too old.
Separate them out as soon as possible or the roots will get too entangled and make life tricky. If necessary, plant them into pots (or the garden if they're big enough to survive the weather) in little clumps. Otherwise, individual plants in little pots (yogurt pots are ideal - never waste money on buying pots) and they'll thrive, maybe producing fruit in their first year if you're lucky!

Farway

kittie wrote: »

Ken Muir is the only grower I will use now, their runners are fantastic and so is their customer care

I so agree, obviously costs more than B & Q / Lidl / Poundland etc, but customer care is fantastic, I even had Ken Muir himself phone me about pruning a plum I had bought.[you will not get this as Ken is now dead ]

Also met Ken at Chelsea flower show, a true fruit grower who knew what he was doing and I hope the vision lives on

the-mango

Budget_Gardener wrote: »

Lots of little plants sounds right - although I planted more this year (same seeds but a bit old now) and they haven't shown so are obviously too old.
Separate them out as soon as possible or the roots will get too entangled and make life tricky. If necessary, plant them into pots (or the garden if they're big enough to survive the weather) in little clumps. Otherwise, individual plants in little pots (yogurt pots are ideal - never waste money on buying pots) and they'll thrive, maybe producing fruit in their first year if you're lucky!

They are literally 4mm across, so small, should i pot them up now?

Also, would they be ok going under a raspberry plant or should I plant them separately?

Budget_Gardener

the-mango wrote: »

They are literally 4mm across, so small, should i pot them up now?

Also, would they be ok going under a raspberry plant or should I plant them separately?

I would wait a little as they're too small to handle but they won't grow huge as they're likely to be competing for space. Just be careful that they don't get too many tangled roots.
As for raspberries, they are pretty vigorous and will spread through a root system and shoot up everywhere. So, yes you can grow strawberries amongst raspberries but be careful that they don't get to destroy them. Light shouldn't be too much of a problem as you can strip lower leaves on the raspberry canes if needed but if they get to surround the strawberries, they'll smother them. Just keep picking out new raspberry canes that grow up in the wrong places but allow some to come through as each year they need new ones to fruit on.

BargainGalore

Budget Gardener please dont promote your site on forums or in your signature

ColinFishwick

Please see this rule thank you

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=3477034&postcount=26

Budget_Gardener wrote: »

Lots of little plants sounds right - although I planted more this year (same seeds but a bit old now) and they haven't shown so are obviously too old.
Separate them out as soon as possible or the roots will get too entangled and make life tricky. If necessary, plant them into pots (or the garden if they're big enough to survive the weather) in little clumps. Otherwise, individual plants in little pots (yogurt pots are ideal - never waste money on buying pots) and they'll thrive, maybe producing fruit in their first year if you're lucky!

Budget_Gardener

I can understand not promoting sites, but surely a money-saving blog by an individual not selling anything should be encouraged rather than discouraged? I've received several complimentary comments from people appreciating it; deleting my original post, in which I was posting useful info about what I was finding at good prices for people like me on tight budgets, seems rather heavy-handed to me.

Budget_Gardener

What miffs me is that a quiet word about the signature would be sufficient - deleting a whole thread which was passing on latest prices and bargains that I've been finding seems a little heavy-handed. There's a subtle difference between a spammer and someone who's obviously genuine but is new and hasn't known all the rules, while a private message from a person to whom replies are not allowed is not helpful.
Anyway, I don't want to pollute another person's thread but as I wasn't able to reply to the request and immediately had my useful thread removed I had little option.