Strawberries

5th June 2012

So the Elan Strawberry Plant finally went in the ground, and has been in about a week now. It seems to be doing ok, can't see any dead leaves yet! :-)

And the pictures below are the Florian Strawberries from seeds so far, about 4 weeks old. Looking a bit wimpy I'm afraid.

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I also started hardened off the biggest Florian Strawberry plant last night! Check the blog page for pictures of him!

21st June, 2012

Ok, so here is a Florian Strawberry update. Out of the 10 seeds we planted, we lost 6 of those, and have four remaining, but they are still weak and spindly, so I really think we failed terribly with our first attempt at strawberry seeds. They are now 6 weeks old. As you can see, one of them is accelerating way ahead of the others (see bottom two pictures) so I am holding out that he at least makes it.

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And here is a picture of the Elan F1 Strawberry Plant that we bought from the shop and put straight into the garden. I made a huge mistake with this and cut off it's first runner! I thought it was just a longer stem until I looked it up on the internet and realised that you can use these runners to propogate new plants!! I wish I knew how old this plant was when I bought it. I never thought to ask in the shop. Transplanting it from pot to garden doesn't seem to done it any harm though. 

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We have also purchased some Alexandria Alpine Strawberry seeds and sowed a few of them on 16th June 2012 (see picture below). We know it's totally out of season, but I have saved some for the correct season, but giving these a go anyway. Nothing has come up so far and it's day 5.

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24th June 2012

So here's how my precious Elan Strawberry Plant is looking this week!

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Sunday, 1st July, 2012

Well, here is thhis weeks updates on the three different strawberry plants we've got going at the moment. First I'll start with the Florian Strawberry plants, which we started from seeds and are now 7 weeks old. We only have 2 left now, but they are very much alive, and I am not worried about losing these now.

The picture below on the left is a bit blurred, but he is still tiny and refused to let me take a good picture. He now has true leaves, and his crown is forming with new shoots just starting.

The picture on the right is the other remaining seedling, and I don't mind admitting, he is a bit of an oddball! He has been the tallest all the way through, and it is the one that I put outside one night to harden off (see blog). I have googled pictures of Florian seedlings, and they all look like the left picture. I haven't seen one pic that looks like Mr Strange as I call him, on the right. He doesn't seem to have formed a crown, and doesn't resemble a typical strawberry plant. I am beginning to wonder if he is a strawberry plant at all!! LOL I'm sure time will tell.

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Next up in the picture below, we have my baby, the Strawberry Elan F1, the shop bought one that has gone straight in the ground in the garden. She is sick :-( 

Although she is still growing, and has now produced his first flower, with a few more just forming, her leaves have started to turn brown, and some have funny squigly marks over them as well. I will be digging her out of this bed (although it is recommended to do this AFTER they have flowered and gone dormant, around Autumn time, but I don't want her to get any worse, so I'm putting her in a pot with fresh compost to see if she improves! If anyone has any clues as to what this is, please leave a comment, or send me a message via the contact form.

And last, but not least is the Strawberry Alexandria Alpine seeds that we planted. Most have now germinated, first came through 25th June, so are a week old, and I can just see the startings of their first true leaves coming through!

So that's it on the Strawberry front until next week. :-)

Sunday, 8th July 2012

I always have to smile when it comes to updating this strawberry page, as it is my favourite, and if nothing else grows, I will continue with my strawberries until they do. This page will always have the most writing and pictures as we love all our stawberry plants to bits, and monitor them hourly! LOL

So firstly, an update on the 'oddball' plant we had growing (See pic for last week above). It wasn't a strawberry plant, as I suspected. It was a bloomin' thistle/nettle!!! which I had total confirmation of when the little blighter stung me! So that has now been evicted (aka 'flung' ) under the tree in the garden. Once bitten, twice shy! ;-)

So, now the REAL plant updates! :-D

We only have the one remaining seedling left out of the Florian Strawberry seeds we planted, and I am hopeful for this one now. She is growing nicely, and even posed for a better picture this week, showing her nice new third true leaf!  Here she is below at 8 weeks old now. I have named her 'Florrie' :-)

Next up we have my shop bought Strawberry Elan F1 Plant, which I don't know her age. She was poorly last week, when her leaves went funny, which I have now learnt was leaf miners, which is a name for an insect which gets into the inside of the leaf inself and makes tunnels in the leaves, leaving the squigly lines I mentioned last week.

Well, I did uproot her, and put her in a large pot, and removed the infected leaves. I didn't know how she would take to being replanted, but she obviously didn't mind, as she now has nice, fresh new shoots coming from the crown (which seems to have split into two!)

Her flowers haven't set fruit yet, even though I tried to help by hand pollinating her with a small paint brush, but because of the constant rain we have had this week, the pollen was just too wet to do anything with so I have just left her alone. I have also named her 'Ella' :-)

Her she is below, repotted and trimmed.

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And then finally, we have the new babies on the block, the Strawberry Alexandria Seedlings. These have shot up, and I have a slight feeling they might overtake Florrie at the rate they are growing. There are also more still germinating, and at the last count there were about 35 seedlings! Nice.

Here they are below, 2 weeks old, and showing off their first true leaf!

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