Strawberry Planters

Things were looking a bit dismal in our courtyard. Partly because I've tried to go low maintenance this year. But there's one project I wanted to complete very soon and that's the strawberry planter. I've stopped growing strawberries at the allotment as I found with twice weekly visits it just wasn't very practical as far as the watering and maintenance was concerned. So this tower was my answer.

I looked at various types and finally settled on this one. As I found out when it arrived, it has pros and cons. It is a lot flimsier than I thought. On the website it actually looks like a solid structure and I was really disappointed to find that the middle section is just a concertina type fairly thin plastic shell. You can find this model easily on many gardening websites - compare the blurb with the reality in this blog post...

It wasn't easy to put together - you need two people and already I'm thinking I wouldn't buy this again. For the amount of work that is involved in filling and constructing it - I'm not sure we'll get the return. The flimsiness of the structure means that I don't think it would tolerate being moved - and the instructions say it will only last three years - so given these points it is also relatively expensive. But that might be me being too cynical. I wish someone would make a solid more sturdy one - send it to me folks and I'll do a review perhaps...

On the plus side, all thirty Strawberry plants I bought fitted in to the tower. As you can see I've placed it on an old filing cabinet so that I can wheel it around in the sun. There's a central watering tube which I hope will help.

Eighty litres of compost are required. I used a mixture of perlite, coir and nutrients/plant food.
The strawberry varieties I used were a mixture of early fruiting, mid-season fruiting and late fruiting varieties. Ten of each. Strawberry Christine, Irresistible and Florence.












Here's what the tower looks like on the inside. I discovered when I had almost finished that I had got the main body upside down, but wasn't going to take it off and start again as I don't think the structure would have stood for it.


So. A little bit straggly perhaps, but here is the finished structure. It will look much better I hope when the plants have grown a bit more!

Not including the cost of the labour involved the plants cost £10 and the planter plus compost - £38.85. If it doesn't work well, that is going to be expensive, isn't it?

If it DOES work well we might be harvesting five fruit per plant (thirty plants) - that's 150 fruits - that's 10 punnets of strawberries at say - £2.50 each...all in all a bit of a gamble.

Allotment Photography

Looking at
perfectly executed gardening photos - I often tend to feel I'll never measure up. I'm sure novice gardeners share that feeling too. So here are photographs of a different - dare I say more realistic kind.

It's not necessarily vital that your your veg patch looks professional and pretty at all times is it? Of course it's a bonus if it does, and a beautiful layout comes with time and experience.


But most organic allotmenteers just want things to work. It's a different aesthetic isn't it? First in the series of (definitely not airbrushed) less-than-perfect-looking-but-very-productive-fruit-and-veg-patch-photographs are the leeks. We haven't started harvesting these yet but we have many more than last year. So that's great. The leeks in this picture could have done with more rain and/or watering. I could have got them started earlier too.



We do have larger ones on the plot. These specimens in the next picture (on the right) are nearly ready to harvest.

The asparagus patch is one of our greatest gardening achievements so far. This is a not-particularly-impressive picture. Practically speaking, the plants are really healthy and sound. For the first time (in June next year) we'll be looking forward to harvesting organically grown asparagus spears. In this picture you might think the couch grass at the side is encroaching on the raised bed, but actually I dug a small trench to keep it away which is very effective as the couch grass doesn't cross it.

My mother told me that my grandfather (who had several allotments) hardly even used to water his. I try to adopt the same approach. Otherwise it is way too much work for us. I've got used to planting just before it rains and nurturing the soil so that it retains water for a long time. I also make extensive use of mulches. Which brings me to our next picture:

Not exactly neat and tidy but very effective on the scale of things as well as being ecologically sound. Here is a slightly raised simple bed edged with cardboard boxes (from mail order goods) and topped with wood chippings from our communal heap on the allotment site The advantage of this technique is it gives the worms a place to hide out (underneath the cardboard) and escape the winter chills.

I planted dwarf broad beans in this space at the weekend. Bare rooted raspberries went in next door to these. More onions and garlic can wait until November.

Last but not least the strawberries. These are recently transplanted - they didn't do so well in the old water butt where they were before as it was difficult to provide them with enough water.

They're looking a bit tatty - but as you can see they're fruiting in October - I'll give them a bit of TLC and they'll be in good shape for next year.

Really glad to say that I won't be buying any more organic slug pellets. Our froglets must have done very well and I saw a juvenile in early autumn - so hoping they'll do the slug patrol for us next year. It's great to see so many spiders and ground beetles too.