I had put the strawberries, blueberries and cranberries outside on the balcony and decided to leave them there. It rained during the night and that left me with a problem with pooling water in their drainage trays:
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Overnight rain caused water to pool in the
drainage trays |
You might think that's no problem, but take a look at my balcony (above) the spaces between the wood planks allow water to stream down onto my downstairs neighbor's patio.
It's ok if a little bit of water trickles down with the rain, but I need to prevent a downpour and I need to prevent a downpour of the stinky peat laced water pooling under the blueberry and cranberry bushes:
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Brown, smelly peat water pooled under
the blueberry and cranberry bushes |
What to do? If I picked up the plants or trays, I would end up with a mess. I considered towels, but that seemed messy to. Then I had a brainstorm: Turkey baster!
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I sucked up the water with a
turkey baster and put it in a bucket |
That worked well, but I'll never baste a turkey with that thing again. It's become a permanent balcony gardening tool.
In other berry news, I'm having a growing problem with browning strawberry leaves.
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| My strawberry leaf tips are turning brown! |
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| :-( |
I've been reading up on brown strawberry leaves and have gotten several different answers. One source says too look for bugs. I see none. Other sources say under watering (unlikely given the amount of watering and rain) Stil others say over watering which I have suspected (and the rain isn't going to help). The, there is the possibility of
leaf blight which is a fungus. That could come from the plants being too tightly packed into the planter and too little sun with too much water. The answer is probably to replant with more light soil around the plants. Since it's supposed to rain a lot in the next few days, I'm wondering if I should bring them in, but then they won't get the good air circulation.
No one said this was going to be easy.
In better news, the strawberry plants are getting some happy looking new growth:
And the blueberries and cranberries seem very happy outside:
I am also wondering if I over fertilized. My local garden store advised me to use Holly-tone to acidify the soil and now I think that led me to over fertilize.
ReplyDeleteIf there's a will, there's a way. In your case, living in a condominium unit did not prevent you from having your own mini garden. Berries are an excellent choice for a small garden on your balcony. Other condo dwellers I know prefer small flowering plants when putting together a mini balcony garden. Anyway, I hope you have remedied the problem regarding water streaming down the balcony of your neighbor downstairs.
ReplyDeleteIts nute burn, 100%. Leaves turning under with necrosis on the edges moving inward is nute burn all the way.
ReplyDelete