First Strawberry Flowers!

[scotkat]

I love Strawberries but have to say have a preference for raspberries to.

 

[Soliloquy]

I love strawberry flowers; they're so pretty and tiny!

 

[claudine]

Zigs, your Alpine Strawberries look so healthy. You'll have so many delicious fruits soon, it's great
Now I want to plant strawberries too. I'd love to have a whole strawberry field. I wonder what my parents would do if I replaced their grass with strawberries

 

[zigs]

I wouldn't bet on it, we've got Blackbirds turning the garden over at the moment, they don't mind a Strawberry You've reminded me, better go look for some stuff to cover them in a minute.

Acsapa, they are only tiny ones, about the size of a fingernail so they just get eaten.

That's a Pansy Chanell, just to pretty the house up while selling it. As soon as we've exchanged contracts, they'll be up for sale at the roadside

Jed, they all came in on one plant that had rooted in the Olive tree pot I brought from my last house, spread everywhere.

 

[ChanellG]

@ACSAPA, I was pretty amazed myself. Remember my thread, "New Plants"? In the photo, the strawberry plants are on the bottom step at the far left in the tray. That petunia on the middle step just above the tray has more than tripled in size! When you look at the photo it has two flowers in different colors - those were two plants.

The white one was the scraggliest and now it has more growth than the purple one! The pink begonia (in the box on the ground) has also had amazing growth. And you should see the zinnias (first step next to the tray); separated them into 3 plants and the pink one is amazing! The kind of orangey one is catching up, and the pale yellow one is limping along, but I have hope it can still bounce back. They all blow me away!

For those haven't seen the photo it's here: https://www.gardening-forums.com/threads/new-plants.1006/

@Claudine, it would take a lot of strawberry plants to do that, lol!

@Zigs, I thought it might be; pity you're so far away or I'd definitely be there to take it off your hands. Do the buyers know the plants weren't all included in the sale? I'm running out of space in my little corner of the yard, I have to figure out how to create more room for more plants!

 

[zigs]

That is a pity Chanell, got loads of pots of them lining the steps.

Bad news about the buyers, their buyer pulled out so they have to find another one.

 

[ChanellG]

Oh, no! Angela had a similar issue with the house they bought a few months back. She was explaining the difference between the process there and here -- seems so complicated.

Thinking of putting eggshells in the containers around the strawberries - something already ate the flower on the other plant and there was snail on the edge of the pot of the one pictured at the start of this thread when I went out to check on the caterpillars yesterday.

Also thinking of using bottle caps to keep snails, worms and unwanted caterpillars off the food plants.

 

[ChanellG]

Update:

Very excited to now have developing berries on both plants! Snipped the first runner as soon as the roots took hold. It immediately wilted and I worried it was too soon, but the next morning it had perked up again. Note to self: cut future "cords" in the evening.

I put coffee grinds around the edge of the soil in one container (have to get more for the other) and yesterday I put eggshells around the plants to discourage those pesky snails. The shells are standing up in the soil like a wall, so hopefully that will do the trick as they seem to take a long time to decompose.

It was a great decision to buy it.

Your green thumb certainly did the trick! ...After that you can snip the runner, right?

Chanell, that plant looks amazingly healthy for a clearance plant...

The alpine strawberries seem to grow themselves ever so slowly in my hot house.

...we tasted our 1st Strawberrie last week.

I love strawberry flowers; they're so pretty and tiny!

I really like growing them because you can easily make more and more of them, and who doesn't love strawberries?

 

[dconklin]

I love strawberries and strawberry plants are so easy to grow too! I don't know what kind of strawberries I have, but all the flowers are white. The wild strawberries that take over my yard are the yellow flowers with no taste - shame because the wild ones with the white flowers are delicious.

I have never snipped anything off of mine, but I am not a strawberry expert. What exactly are you snipping off? Mine spread nicely and I get flowers but the birds and bugs usually get them before they are ripe - grrr.

 

[ChanellG]

I have never snipped anything off of mine, but I am not a strawberry expert. What exactly are you snipping off? Mine spread nicely and I get flowers but the birds and bugs usually get them before they are ripe - grrr.

I am cutting the runners away from the host plants.

This is the first I am hearing of a strawberry with yellow flowers; maybe it's some kind of cultivar or a strawberry relative? I don't think those are actually strawberries. http://strawberryplants.org/2013/03/strawberry-plants-with-yellow-flowers/

 

[dconklin]

I am cutting the runners away from the host plants.

This is the first I am hearing of a strawberry with yellow flowers; maybe it's some kind of cultivar or a strawberry relative? I don't think those are actually strawberries. http://strawberryplants.org/2013/03/strawberry-plants-with-yellow-flowers/

Yeah I see that now! Somebody had told me a while back that they were wild strawberries and so that is what I thought they were. They have no taste tho but are not toxic fortunately

They will take over the yard if I let them too, it is too bad they are not strawberries with how fast they spread!

 

[ChanellG]

Yeah I see that now! Somebody had told me a while back that they were wild strawberries and so that is what I thought they were. They have no taste tho but are not toxic fortunately

Since they are not toxic maybe you could can them. The bitter oranges in Spain are a great example of a fruit that aren't eaten, but still used to make marmalade. At the very least you can pull the plants and use them in your compost.

 

[dconklin]

Since they are not toxic maybe you could can them. The bitter oranges in Spain are a great example of a fruit that aren't eaten, but still used to make marmalade. At the very least you can pull the plants and use them in your compost.

I don't have compost here and I am not sure that it is a good idea here. My yard is small and neighbors may not be amused (if we are even allowed to compost in town here.) Also we have so many green flies (can't remember the name but have that iridescent green tint) here that they drive us crazy already. I find them on the weeds in the yard, one of the trees and we had maggots in our garbage can last year because of these annoying buggers.

They just started showing up here a couple years ago and that was around the time that the train right outside our house started to haul garbage once in a while. You can see the train from our window it is so close and they rerouted city garbage and put it on that train so occasionally there are cars upon cars of garbage going by. Now we have fly problems At least the train is usually freight and not always garbage because it runs frequently all day!

 

[ChanellG]

I don't have compost here and I am not sure that it is a good idea here. My yard is small and neighbors may not be amused (if we are even allowed to compost in town here.) Also we have so many green flies (can't remember the name but have that iridescent green tint) here that they drive us crazy already.

I live in the city, near a river no less, and I have two compost bins outdoors. The only time I see flies in my yard is when there is something dead nearby. City composting is quite different from creating a pile of leaves, manure, or whatever in a corner of the yard. Not to mention with vermicomposting you can have a small indoor bin and eliminate compostable food scraps odor free.

Just something to think about.

 

[dconklin]

I live in the city, near a river no less, and I have two compost bins outdoors. The only time I see flies in my yard is when there is something dead nearby. City composting is quite different from creating a pile of leaves, manure, or whatever in a corner of the yard. Not to mention with vermicomposting you can have a small indoor bin and eliminate compostable food scraps odor free.

Just something to think about.

I was doing yard work the other day and these flies were all over the weeds, a couple trees and they fly around our deck too. Every time we open the door we have to watch or they get in. Ever since they started routing the garbage on our train here in town, the flies have been out of control. Had maggots in our grill last year, find them in the outdoor garbage can too and sometimes there are a ton of flies just flying around in circles by the deck with nothing there that should attract them. I could try to compost but I think the fear of making these flies a happy environment will make it hard for me.