by Wally Richards
BIG STRAWBERRIES FOR YOU
The shortest day of the year has passed, readers. Today we are around the corner and heading to a new season.
June is the first month of winter and the month that most of the different types of strawberry plants become available in garden centres.
Strawberries are a woodland plant and the modern strawberries such as Monterey have been bred from the original wild ones. This is important information to use when you come to plant strawberries in containers or in strawberry beds. Strawberries do best in a partly sunny situation, with ample woodland debris such as rotting leaves and decaying wood.
As there are ample fallen leaves available at this time, you can collect these and put them through a shredder or lay them on a bit of lawn (where it does not matter) and run over them with a rotary mower.
Your catcher should be full of nicely shredded leaves. Mix with this about a similar amount of untreated sawdust for the decaying wood.
A good sprinkling of Wallys Real Blood and Bone incorporated will become your woodland mix.
This should be spread into the area where you are going to plant your strawberries and covered with a layer of good purchased compost.
If you are going to plant into containers or into troughs, then add your woodland mix to an equal amount of compost.
Incorporate all together well for the potting medium.
Plant up your strawberry plants and then drench them with Mycorrcin, MBL and water. The Mycorrcin has been proven in trials, to increase the yield of strawberries by 200 to 400%. A 2-weekly spray of the plants with Mycorrcin is the on going treatment (MBL can be added to this if you like).
For those who like to obtain the most health benefits from their home grown produce, add some Ocean Solids and Unlocking Your Soil to the above mix. Those gardeners who have existing strawberries — now is the time to collect the rooted runners to start off a fresh strawberry patch.
Existing plants that have done well and are free of disease can be left in the beds and drenched with the Mycorrcin. Any plants that have not done well or have disease should be removed from the bed. I like to lift my strawberry plants about this time of the year out of their raised gardens. The old plants will have formed clumps and with a sharp knife you can divide up the plants.
Ensure that while the plants are out of the ground the roots are kept moist.
A basin with water in it is ideal for this so as the clumps are separated they can be placed into the basin.
Once all the plants are lifted and sorted you can refresh the bed with the mix described above.
Then select the best of the plants from the basin and plant them into the fresh bed along with any runners that you have not put into a separate new bed.
The earlier you establish your new strawberries the better the crop you will achieve this coming season. Late plantings in spring or early summer will never be as good as plantings now.
Here are some new types to look out for:
- forget-me-not Monterey which has a large red strawberry, which is deliciously sweet as well an outstanding flavour. Monterey also has a good disease resistance. Importantly it is also a Day Neutral strawberry variety, which ensures a long harvest starting from October and all the way to March.
This variety is protected PVR. which means unlicensed propagation is not allowed.
You can find Monterey in you favorite M10 store with the name Sweet As, or in your The Warehouse store the retail label will say Sweetie and in the Bunnings store it is just called Monterey. also available at most in Group garden centre members.
- Ventana, a variety with medium sized bright red strawberries, with a delicious sweet juicy flesh.
It has a good yield from October to December. Large upright growth habit and is also protected by PVR so unlicensed propagation is not permitted. It’s available from Bunnings over the months of July and August.
- Cabrillo, a large bright red strawberry, also with a delicious sweet juicy flesh an excellent flavour with a good yield.
A day neutral variety fruiting from October to March, Cabrillo has a good tolerance to rain and weather damage. Available from Bunnings over June and July.
TENDER PLANT PROTECTION
There are a number of garden plants that do not like the cold or frosts that they will have to face through the next few months.
Some also detest wet soil conditions which can led to wet weather diseases such as root rot.
Citrus trees are a good example of this, wet feet will cause root rots with the loss of leaves and crop, in some cases the loss of the tree.
Newer foliage can also be blackened by frost nipping the tree back.
All your evergreen garden plants that resent wet conditions can be assisted to cope better with a monthly spray of Perkfection.
Remove any mulches around citrus or other plants that dont like wet feet.
If you don’t, they may die during a wet winter.
Those plants that are cold or frost tender can then be sprayed with Wallys Spray on Frost Protection at 50 ml per litre of water to give them frost protection down to minus 16, for one months within 24 hours of spraying.
Then a month later apply a maintenance spray at 25 ml per litre of water. Repeat maintenance spray every 4 weeks.
If you are interested here is a link to my last gardening program with Rodney Hide:-
Phone 0800 466464
Garden Pages and News at www.gardenews.co.nz
Shar Pei pages at www.sharpei.co.nz
Mail Order products at www.0800466464.co.nz
