strawberries courgette and cucumber

rosemummy

i bought small plants of all 3 recently..and have no idea what to do with any of them! think the cucumber may have got very wet and be a lost cause, they'll all have to be in pots, any advice welcome

Fairygirl

Don't grow cumbers or courgettes rosemummy but I do grow strawbs in big pots. I don't really do much with them at all - they've been fed and the fruits are forming now so I let them get on with it. I'll pot up runners to make more for next year. It's helpful to have something on the soil/compost to keep them from getting dirty and wet to avoid them rotting, which just attracts the dreaded slugs and snails. Straw is traditional but it can be gravel or grit or anything else suitable. Less of a problem in pots anyway. I take a few leaves off if the foliage is blocking light too much but that's usually later on. 

rosemummy

thanks fairy what and when should i feed?

Steve 309

Strawbs: Highish potash feed when they're about to start flowering/fruiting (i.e. asap).  You could try half-strength tomato fertiliser but I've always found they do well just with a good dose of garden compost.  Harder in a pot....

Courgettes:  Assuming they're hardened off (i.e. used to conditions outdoors), dig a big hole, fill it with garden compost, soak it, heap the soil back on top and plant the courgette on top of the resulting mound.  They need to be about a yard apart if you have more than one. 

Oops.  Just re-read the Q.   Use the biggest pot you can find (or a bucket, or an old fertiliser bag or similar, depending on how much you care about how it looks) and fill it with the richest soil you can find.  Or just garden compost.  Soak it.  Plant into that.

Cucumbers - never grown them so I have no idea I'm afraid, but if you hang around here, someone will be along who does.

Happy eating

Fairygirl

I use tomato food for my strawbs but not very often - they've only had one watering with it since they were put in the pot last month ( when fruits started forming as Steve says) having been in a raised bed for a few months.  In pots I just use MP compost, in the ground they'd get some FB&B sprinkled round them in spring. I've got 3 plants in an  18" diameter pot. 

rosemummy

Thanks, got v big pots, will do as advised over weekend