Strawberry Crowns (Farm12 2/22/22) Ended

[lynnee]

Started 2/22/22 in Farm 12.  Burpee New Albion strawberry crowns, planted according to the official AG instructions. These may be too large to grow in an AG, but we'll see.
www.aerogarden.com/blog/growing-strawberries/

No mention is made of pump settings or nutrient amounts. Guessing that crowns won't need a germination stage, I started with a pump setting for high-growth tomatoes--60/000 (pump runs constantly)--and 24ml AG nutes.  

The crowns were very dirty.  Although I rinsed the roots thoroughly, the lukewarm water for the recommended two hours' soaking ended up with a lot of dirt.





The roots were too big to thread out of the net portion of the pods, so I cut off the ends of the pods. Then I had to use split AG sponges to hold the smaller crowns up at the top of the pods. (When you cut off the pod ends, there's nothing to hold the sponges in place.) Perhaps the crowns are planted too high?



Naturally I counted wrong, so I soaked one extra crown. Number 13 went into a Kratky (now covered in tinfoil).  That's my GZ tomato project in the background.   

[maskedsonnet]

Good luck!! Strawberries are the best

[Sher]

I have seen people really struggle with strawberry crowns. I think your setting yours way up high might be the magic solution.

Crossing my fingers that they are a stunning success!  DcKpvN

[lynnee]

The height can be adjusted, I think, if it looks like the right thing to do. I have another dozen of these plants, so can try again if this batch fails quickly. I don't know how long bare root plants remain viable.

These crowns seem much healthier than the ones that AG used to sell. The AG crowns were much smaller, and very dried out. A couple of them were actually DOA.

Anyway, agfarm's and maskedsonnet's great strawberry projects here are what inspired my second try at strawberries from crowns..

[Shawn]

Following and wishing you great success with them.

[lynnee]

Day 3. The strawberry crowns are producing leaves!

[Sher]

They look so happy, lynnee!

[Shawn]

On their way to a successful grow.

[lynnee]

So far the strawberry crowns are doing fine, even the one in the Kratky! The AG newsletter had the Grow Light on special for something like $83, so I bought one for my occasional Kratky projects. (I don't have much space for plants next to windows.)



I also felt sorry for the strawberry crown in the Kratky. The Grow Light doesn't have a timer, so I have a simple on/off timer coming from Amazon today.  The shiny black top of the Grow Light is highly reflective!  That's a table covered with a pink towel that's visible in the photo.

[Sher]

lynnee , I used to use those lights a lot for Kratky -- some on the stand and some suspended in a closet when the plants got too tall. They worked great!

Your little strawberry should love it.

And your strawberry plants all look amazing!

[lynnee]

Day 9. Big surprise this morning!

[Sher]

The BEST kind of surprise! Short of the first strawberry, anyway! 

[lynnee]

Day 14. Time for an R&R, plus 24ml AG nutes. The Kratky (1.5ml nutes in 100ml water--slightly less than a pint) is keeping up with the rest, it seems.

I found an old AG thing on growing strawberries that advised removing flowers until the plant has at least six leaf sets (3 leaves each).

Only one of my crowns has flowers, so I left them in place just to see what happens. I tried to pollinate them, but am not sure that I did it right. The blooms take a more delicate touch than Fairy Tale eggplant, I think, though AG says to pollinate strawberries with the "be the bee" accessory.

[Shawn]

They look so good.

[Sher]

Someday do a search for Rick, who tried repeatedly, unsuccessfully, to grow strawberries in a Harvest.

Your garden would have looked like heaven to him.

(I think he must has passed away before ever achieving success.)

[agfarm]

Mar 8, 2022 20:52:14 GMT -5 lynnee said:

Day 14. Time for an R&R, plus 24ml AG nutes. The Kratky (1.5ml nutes in 100ml water--slightly less than a pint) is keeping up with the rest, it seems.

I found an old AG thing on growing strawberries that advised removing flowers until the plant has at least six leaf sets (3 leaves each).

Only one of my crowns has flowers, so I left them in place just to see what happens. I tried to pollinate them, but am not sure that I did it right. The blooms take a more delicate touch than Fairy Tale eggplant, I think, though AG says to pollinate strawberries with the "be the bee" accessory.

Your progress looks great! And excellent write up. It is very clear and has all the key details starting at post 1. 

I too saw that note about removing flowers until the crowns have grown some more. I feel like that is part of how my seascapes started to decline (when I decided not to cut off flower trusses). 

It is just too painful to kill off those beautiful flower trusses. Maybe try on a select couple to see how they compare?

[lynnee]

agfarm, that's a good suggestion, and I'll experiment. Did you remove the flowers on the pineberries?

[agfarm]

Mar 9, 2022 19:30:10 GMT -5 lynnee said:

agfarm, that's a good suggestion, and I'll experiment. Did you remove the flowers on the pineberries?

That's a great question/point. I did not cut any flowers on the pineberries. At first, the pineberries dragged in progress when compared to the seascapes. The pineberry fruit is growing very very slowly.

What's confusing is only half the pineberries are flowering. All pineberries are making runners.

Seascapes are not making any runners...interesting.

[agfarm]

Also, at the beginning, I trimmed the roots of my seascapes to about 6 inches. I see you did not, instead you modified the pods.

I think that's a key point to your early success. My seascapes took time to recover their roots after I cut them. Roots are arguably more important than leaves.

[lynnee]

Mar 9, 2022 21:23:55 GMT -5 agfarm said:

Also, at the beginning, I trimmed the roots of my seascapes to about 6 inches. I see you did not, instead you modified the pods.

I think that's a key point to your early success. My seascapes took time to recover their roots after I cut them. Roots are arguably more important than leaves.

Not trimming the roots may have allowed the crowns to grow faster. I didn't even think of trimming the roots, because I didn't have the AG instructions in front of me when I did the planting!

I love growing new types of fruits and veggies for the first time. Figuring out what they need to flourish and to taste good is more fun than actually eating the final produce.