Sunday, November 29, 2009

Bedding Down The Strawberry Beds

Our strawberries did not do so well this year. Looking back and thinking about it some I think we had several factor leading to this:

1) unfavorable weather - It was cool, wet, and most definitely unsunny.
2) potassium - Our soil in the beds developed a potassium deficiency. I can solve this with bone meal, but if someone can think of another organic solution I would love to hear it.
3) plant age - I think we bought plants a year older than normal. This means they produced early but may be nearing the end of their productive time.
4) failure to properly perform winter care - we did not properly close the beds last year.

This year we properly closed the beds. I cut all the old foliage back. Covered up with straw, held that down with some sticks, etc, for weight, put some slug repellent down.

This spring I will be putting some fresh compost down, some potassium supplement of some sort, maybe a few fresh plants, particularly on the underused bed, and hope for some more affable weather.

2 comments:

  1. You can add hard wood ash, it's a great source. As is greensand, kelp meal, compost (especially if it has banana peels), granite dust is also a good source. I like to use hard wood ash since I can make it here at home from fallen trees, branches & sticks I pick up around the lawn. In the spring you can give them a dose of liquid seaweed which will give them a good quick dose of potassium to get them going until your soil amendments start to work.

    I added kelp meal to my strawberries this spring and they grew wonderfully. They were tall, had nice big dark green leaves and they fruited nicely.

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  2. Pretty much what CR said above. But especially seaweed, some people really swear by it and pics of plants feed seaweed always look better to me for some reason.

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