Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Chatting => Frugal Living => Topic started by: lettice on June 13, 2016, 10:52
-
Lidl are selling £1 strawberry plants form Thursday 16th June
Varieties: Toscana, Rosana, Merlan or Loran
Height 18cm
Pot size 10.5 cm
http://www.lidl.co.uk/en/our-offers-2491.htm?id=868&ar=12
-
Thanks Lettice :)
I'm over near the Lidl in Reading on Thursday so may well pop in for those :)
-
Got three plants, a roman, merlan and a tristan.
Quality was great and all flowering nicely.
Will be my first ever strawberries.
Have potted them into larger pots and hung on outside of greenhouse so they can trail nicely.
-
Just picked a small pyrex bowl half full of them, they have done well so far.
Loads more flowers all over them, so looks like they will crop well.
Must have been all the rain we have had in the last week and warm temps.
-
Those plants did so well and we had an excellent picking. Bowlfuls every week or more for two months.
Since they stopped cropping have taken a load of runners and now have twenty plants that can now be cut in my greenhouse as they have rooted and some even have flowers.
For next year I've found some old wire hanging pots to grow them in.
Really do not want them in the ground or a raised bed.
When is the best time to get them outside in a new home, was thinking Spring so would it be best to keep the runners in their pots now in the greenhouse until then?
Do they become dormant soon and then sprout again in Spring?
Do you throw away the original plants over time and just use the runners?
-
In my experience the taste of strawberries from the ground is far superior to those grown in pots etc.
I would chop the leaves back on the original plants now, they will reshoot then produce again next year. They are hardy so the runners can go outside. You can try to force them on in the greenhouse but you won't get very good pollination as the bugs aren't around to pollinate them. It is recommended that you replace the plants after 3-4 years as they are prone to viruses. I have just had a fifth year out of a bed and they're still looking good but will scrap them this year.
-
Thanks for the above advice.
I did put them outside and as well as the baskets put some in rectangle pots, so kinda ground level.
They are all flowering nicely and fruits now appearing.
The original plants are all flowering and fruiting too and they are in the ground in a corner plot with five of the runners.
Out of the 20 runners, I had 18 that are now flowering and most over the last few days have shown signs of fruiting.
Two runners withered away, so a good success rate Id say on my first attempt.
Here is a pic of one runner in a pot.
-
Excellent value for the original pound a plant last year!
-
Lidl have these in again this week for 99p
https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/Non-Food-Offers.htm?articleId=3658&ar=12
Did not really need any, but got a few more, at that price its hard to resist and knowing how good they were.
All of my original are now fruiting, so going to have an amazing crop in the next few months.
Thought growing strawberries was going to be a little difficult, but so far its been an easy crop really.
-
Bought some at my local Tesco, 3 plants for 15p - the manager siad it was that or they were going in the bin, the last thing I need was 48 more strawberry plants but hey ho, they ar ein the ground and starting to geen up.
-
Sounds another good bargain.
Hope you have the success I have had, been enjoying bowlfuls twice a week from all the 18 plants.
The rectangle pots produced much the same crop as the baskets, so will do them all in pots and baskets again next year.
Well happy.
-
The new strawberries seem to be doing OK. The ones already at the plot have provided us with 24lbs of strawberries, stuffed our faces and made jam.