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Strawberry newbie question

  • 27-04-2014 8:39pm
    #1
    miss no stars
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,957 ✭✭✭


    So I got some strawberry plants in a garden centre. Five are in three large pots on the patio where they get sun most of the day (two pots of two normal varieties and one pot has a pink lipstick (I think) variety in it), two normal varieties are in a hanging basket and then I have a pre-made hanging basket of them (bought in the tub, dunno what variety). Hanging baskets get sun all day. I put the baskets into a little plastic greenhouse at night if the temperature is forecast to be under 5 and then wrap the patio ones in fleece.

    I've noticed that one of the plants in the hanging basket of normal variety white flowers appears to be losing some of its petals :( (all but the pre-made hanging basket have flowers, the pre-made basket is busy sending out runners) I've been trying to be very careful with them, I've had them 2 weeks and have watered them every evening and I fed them today. The centres of the flowers are bulging forward so I presume the strawberries are starting to form but I'm concerned about the petal loss.

    Is the flower or plant dying? The centre is still pretty small so while I get that the petals have to fall off at some point for the fruit to form, it seems early? Could it have suffered from frost inside the little greenhouse? I've noticed on a couple more that patches of the white petals are going a little bit translucent, also a matter for concern. Might they have some plant illness?

    I've been looking for a visual schematic for strawberry life stages but haven't found anything, so a bit lost on what to do about them.


Comments

  • #2
    redser7
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,730 ✭✭✭redser7


    That all sounds perfectly normal. The petals dropping simply means that pollination has taken place. Now the green centre will swell and eventually turn red and it will be time to whip up some cream.
    Key things to remember ... Keep up the watering. If the plant dries out the fruit can get misshapen and inedible. Feed the plant with a liquid tomato feed. How often? Hard to say, maybe once a week.
    You can also help pollination by brushing the flower centres with a fine artist's paint brush.
    If frost got to your flowers you would know it, the yellow centres would turn black.
    Nip out those runners now. They just use up valuable energy. After you harvest your fruit, allow maybe 4 runners to develop (nip out the rest), pin them down into little pots of compost and voila you have new plants for free for next year.
    Love strawberries :)


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