Help Im a beginner!!

flowerbomb2

Hi there, I was wondering if I bought a small pot of growing strawberries today and repotted them would it be to late or will I get a few weeks growth.  I would appreciate any comments.  Thankyou.  Also is there any veg i can pot now or is is the wrong time?  Obviously I wouldnt buy the seeds I would buy plant in growth

 

Regards

Steve 309

Bit late for strawbs now I'd say.  But plant them now with lots of compost under them, and take off any flowers that show this year and you'll get a load of fruit next year.

It's a good time to sow or plant stuff that you can harvest next spring: spring cabbage (try Primo) and purple sprouting broccoli for example, but most of the stuff that's going to be harvested this autumn is already in full growth.  You could try some early carrots from seed - try Early Nantes or Amsterdam Forcing - and you should get a crop by October if the weather's reasonable.  Maybe some little beetroot as well, and radishes are very quick.

Welcome to the forum and to this most absorbing of hobbies - you'll find lots of friends and advice here

 

B3

Pea shoots and other immature salad leaves like lettuce etc

Steve 309

mmmm..... pea shoots .....mmmmm

(You have to imagine the Homer SImpson voice there.  Not that he'd be seen dead eatimg veg...)

chris 172

hi your strawberry plants should be sending off runners now so its the best time to get free plants for next year. i cropped runners off my plants early this year however there is still time to do it.

what i do which always works is 4inch pot of compost stand next to plant and pin into th etop of the compost the actual runner with a folded piece of wire pushing down slightly into the compost.

2 weeks later they would have rooted so just cut from the parent plant hey presto free plant

do that from a few plants you can quickly get a couple of dozen new plants when the time is ready for replacing your old stock which i do every 3 years.

quick and easy and also good to share spare easy grown plants with friends

happy gardening

chris 172

hi pictures of the strawberries i have potted up from the runners, really easy give it a go you wont be disapointed

 

Steve 309

Each plant produces several long arching stems which touch the ground again a foot ot so away.  Left to themselves they'll root where they touch and produce more plants which end up as a tangled mass if you do nothing about it. 

Producing them does cost the plant a lot though so I wouldn't let each one produce more than a couple of runners, especially in the first year.  Peg down the first two where you want them then cut off the others as soon as you see them.

Spider plants do the same thing  - and so do nettles, creeping buttercup, couch grass and ground elder, only their runners are underground which makes them a b*gger to get rid of.

Steve 309

like this

and this

 

Fairygirl

The main plant sends out a long shoot with a growing tip ( a little bunch of leaves)  which produces some little roots. You peg this shoot down into the surrounding soil or a pot of compost. It will root and grow into a little plant in it's own right and when you see new growth, you simply sever the new plant from the parent, removing that original long shoot  

Fairygirl

Snap Steve!  

Steve 309

Great minds...