Sunday On The Allotment - 18 Nov - Strawberries

I woke up to a brilliant sunny morning in St Ives Cornwall. A bit chilly - but nowhere near as cold as last night's weather forecast predicted.

My usual three mugs of tea and several cigarettes to get started.

Followed by a warming breakfast of porridge with golden syrup and honey - ready to head out to my allotment ......

The main job for today was tidying up the strawberry patch.

It needed a bit of weeding to help the plants to grow without competition.

At some point I want to net it as well - but I didn't get round to that this Sunday. Another job to add to the list.

In Spring I planted a few "bare root" strawberry plants ordered online from Marshalls Seeds. They didn't fruit this Summer - but they are still growing - so I'm hopeful for next year.

Last month I added a few more - kindly given to me by a neighbouring allotmenter who had lots of runners from his mature plants.

Some of the strawberry plants were quite small and surrounded by weeds - so I decided not to use the hoe and to weed the bed by hand and with the trowel.

I didn't want to risk damaging the plants with the hoe.

The soil on my plot is in pretty good shape - and one indicator of that was the number of worms unearthed as I was weeding.

Right across the plot its really loamy and rich - with a good depth - and lots of earthworms !

I am luckier than many allotment holders.

The finished bed looked  lot neater - and more importantly - with more space for the strawberries to grow. Yet another reason for looking forward to Spring and Summer !

Growing strawberries fits in with my philosophy of growing "high value" crops that are great to eat. Everybody loves this fruit - so if I have a surplus - swaps will be no problem.




As an added bonus - the plants will throw out runners next summer to give me even more plants.

Final word - this is an Allotment With A Sea View - so here is a pic of just that - looking north from my plot towards the North Cornwall coast.

Final final word - I've set up a Facebook page to go with the blog - check it out - and please hit the "Like" button:
Allotment With A Sea View - Facebook

Also - feel free to post your own pics and comments.

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Previous Sundays On The Allotment

11th November 2012 - Odd Jobs
4th November 2012 - Tidying Up
28th October 2012 - Pumpkins and Squash

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