Less Can Be More with Strawberries

Due to the weather, most of my garden is still inside. Due to my huge windows and west/southwest exposure, everyone is doing pretty well despite the weather. To my surprise, I even have a few strawberries to report. I didn't think I'd get any this year.

You might remember that I took my initial strawberry planting very seriously. I studied soil mixes. I spoke to a person at my local garden shop. I purchased soil additives. I blending my soil 1/3 potting mix, 1/3 Canadian sphagnum peat and 1/3 what I thought was a good combination various meals such as bone meal and feather meal (just like I saw on a YouTube about planting strawberries) in a product called Holly-tome.

Turned out Holly-tone is fertilizer and should be sprinkled on only sparingly. The result was brown leaf carnage until I figured out what was going on and doused the poor thing with water and replaced as much of the soil I could without disturbing the roots too much.

Then, one Ozark Beauty strawberry kit I tried out turned out to be a mystery plant. I studied it for a while and determined it was probably just a weed. So, I dumped it out, cleaned the container and replanted with two plants I found sitting around Home Depot waiting for a new home like the runts of the litter. One plant is an Ozark Beauty and the other Allstar.

Now, I have one ripening strawberry from the Allstar:

Maturing Allstar

with another on the way:

Getting there...

and a little tiny beginning strawberry:

Teeny tiny strawberry-like swelling

The strawberries I almost killed, but rescued are hanging out on the balcony, survived the cold wet spring and are finally starting to sprout healthy new growth:

A rescued and recovering fertilizer-a-holic

The lesson I learned from this strawberry adventure is that sometimes it's a good idea to do the simplest replanting in plain old potting mix, keep it minimally moist and then leave it alone as I'm pretty sure that's what Home Depot did with my now fruiting strawberry plant.

Inside/Outside

The cold, wet spring led me to keep much of the garden inside. I still have the peppers, beans and peas indoors. The lettuce was put outside because it likes the cold weather.

I've had a few salads out of my Red Sails lettuce and it's delicious:

Harvested Red Sails

I've also had a bean crop, but not enough for a couple of servings of beans. So, I harvested what I had and blanched them for salad:

My first Blue Lake Bush Beans Harvest

I've also harvested some Lemon Thyme used to season some Alaskan Halibut for dinner last Wednesday.

It's important to harvest when the crop is ready even if it's not necessarily when you're ready. The Red Sails will wilt and flop over into the soil when not harvested timely. The bean bushes will produce more because I harvested and I have lots of beans coming out:

New beanery coming up since harvest

Due to the weather, the tomato plant has remained inside and it's huge:

and flowering:

I wanted to bring the tomato plant out today, but there's a problem unique to condo balconies. I have little control of what the condo association does out there and on Tuesday they are spraying for bees and wasps. Everyone will have to come back inside until that's done and dried out. I don't like eating bee and wasp poison.

Lemons and Orchids and Kittens, oh my

Orchids, not exactly food, but beautiful

Ok, I couldn't help myself. I thought they were pretty, so I purchased this pot containing two orchids.

From the directions, I note they need a bright room, no direct sunlight and little water.

I also found a dwarf Meyer Lemon tree online:


Meyer Lemon enjoying a rare sunny day

 A Meyer Lemon needs to be kept warm and not too wet. I've had him inside, but put him on the balcony today to enjoy the warm, sunny day.

So, ok, I probably got carried away with the Orchids and Lemons, but at least I didn't get the other thing I've been looking at:

Scout the Kitten

I already have a cat, Zoe who is 18 going on 19 in July, but I was so tempted to bring this little red fluff ball home with me from Adopt-a-Pet.

Garden Changes

I decided I didn't have space to grow a weed, so I destroyed the mystery plant. I cleaned out the strawberry pot and put in a couple of real strawberry plants, one a real Ozark Beauty (as opposed to the not so Ozark Beauty that came with my strawberry kit) and the other an Allstar. Allstar is June bearing and bears larger fruit than the OB's.

New strawberries on left

It's supposed to be good to have more than one variety of strawberry plant around for pollination reasons.

I also replanted the new pea seedies in their own container:

New English Peas

They're too small to climb at this point, but I'll soon need a tressel. I tresseled both sides of the bean/pea combo container because they were falling all over the place:

Peas and Beans. I found a couple more
pea pods have emerged in the mix

Some of the green beans are getting big enough to harvest and eat. The problem is that there are probably going to be only a handful in each batch (this seems to be true for the peas as well), not enough for a meal. I think I'll blanch them to add in salads rather than trying to make an entire dish from just a few beans.

In other news, I staked the green bean plants that were falling down under the weight of the beans:

Staked Beans

and I caged the tomato which was starting to lean:



The tomato plant is getting big. It's a determinant plant, so
I'm not supposed to have to prune it.


I took the peppers for an outing, and they got hailed on. Now I know how Charles Ingalls felt when his crop was destroyed by hail is an early episode of Little House on the Prairie. The peppers don't look too happy now. I brought them back in because they weren't doing well in the wind and it's supposed to cool off after tomorrow (back into the 50s which is pretty remarkable for late May.) Peppers prefer warmth.

The lettuce and onions seem to be faring well outside. The blueberry and cranberry bushes are alive and doing better since I rescued them from over fertilizing, but there isn't much growth. I'm not sure I'll ever get berries.

I have a couple of interesting additions that I'll reveal this week.

Beans and Pea(s)

I've been so busy, I haven't had much time to blog, but it's green bean season in the condo. These guys were never outside at all, but flowered and now I'm getting beans:

This one looks a bit bumpy
I'm wondering if it needs more water

...and.............. ta da! A sole pea pod:

These are English peas, not sugar snap peas, so I'll have about 4 or 5 peas from this pod (provided I don't kill it between now and harvest). Small side dish, but this is good news considering this was a plant I thought died in a battle with the green beans.

In other news, the tomato plant has several flowers:

I want to put them all outside, but I'm concerned about their acclimating when their with fruit (vegetable) and workmen are working on our balconies today, so there's no room.

Mystery Plant...Identified (maybe)

One of my Ozark Beauty Strawberry kits is yielding something decidedly un-strawberry-like. I decided I should check it out in case it's something harmful or illegal.

Turns out that it might be celosia. That's would not be entirely bad because they grow some colorful and pretty nice looking flowers.

However, it might be callaloo or pigweed, not all that attractive, but considered a vegetable in some parts of the world. I consider it an invasive weed that killed my Ozark Beauties, so I'm not too happy.

To keep or throw away and start over, that is the question.

Teeny-Weeny Greeny Beany and Other Condo Garden News

The green bean flowers on the plants I left inside are giving way to tiny green beans. You can see one to the right of the flower in the following picture:

The ones on the outside are too busy shivering to sprout beans. May 14, 2011 2:43 pm and it's 49 degrees out. It's not supposed to go below freezing though.

I other news, the pea experiment peas have been replanted because the tiny roots were starting to dig into the washcloth. Note to self (and anyone else who tried the pea experiment): if you use a washcloth as I did, get the sprouts out and replanted in 48 hours or those roots mistake the terrycloth fluff for soil. Here they are poking their stems and early leafs through the soil:

Now, I just have to figure out what to do with them.

Oh, I should tell you that the blueberry bush and cranberries have been saved from over fertilizing. They are now looking green (not brown). The cranberry bushes turned a deep green and look beautiful. Both have new growth.

Blueberry and Cranberry Bushes looking much better

The strawberries that suffered the same over-fertilizing don't appear to have new browning, but haven't recovered as well. Two of the plants appear to have died and the other two are struggling, but there is some new green growth, so I have some hope.

I'm not sure about the recovery
of the Strawberries

But, the new growth gives me hope

The first batch of strawberry plants from the kits I purchased are doing better as they were in conventional potting soil. The problem with them is that the kits came with 10 plants each, recommended planting all of them and I think they choked each other to death. I only got one viable straweberry plant out of them in one kit and what's growing out of the other kit doesn' look at all like a strawberry plant:

Strawberry kits

If you can identify this plant, please let me know:

What the heck is this? It doesn't look like
a strawberry plant.

It might be cold, but the trees flowered nicely. This is a view out my window:

I'm surrounded by flowering trees.

Got Lettuce?

I do:

Red Sails Lettuce is
looking very happy

I'm going to have a salad tonight. Pulling leaves will encourage new ones to develop.

In other condo garden news:

The tomato shot up at least a couple of inches overnight:

As have the peppers:



Sweet carnival mix peppers
should be pretty when (if)
the grow


They're both still inside. The peppers need to be warm and I'm still deciding if I need to thin them out by 1 or 2 by pulling the smaller ones.

Also sending out love in the form of a shoot is the Greek oregano:

Greek Oregano with flat leaf parsley
and onion chives in background

Not doing too good is the spinach. It's yellowing. I'll have to figure out what's going wrong soon or I'll lose it (if I haven't already).

So, what have I learned lately? That Red Sails lettuce prefers it outdoors (but I brought it in last night because of the thunderstorms).

Fun With Pea Seeds

I've been fretting about my pea seedlings because I planted them with the monster Blue Lake Bush Beans before I knew they worshiped the dark side. The beans are huge, and while the peas started growing tall, they are browing at the bottom.

So, I planted a few more pea seedlings. These are Dark Seeded Early Perfection from Burpee.

Then, I decided to do a little experiment.

Beth Botts mentioned sprouters when she spoke at my local garden club last week. I decided to build my own, nothing fancy.

I started with a small pie tin that came with a plastic cover, seeds and an old wash cloth (saving paper so not using paper towels as often recommended):

I soaked the wash cloth in warm water and stuffed half of it in the tin:

Got my pea seeds ready. Some say I should have soaked them in water for an hour or so first, but I didn't do that as my towel was well soaked:

Then, I put the seeds in the towel:

And I placed the other half of the warm, damp wash cloth over them:

As such:

Then, I placed the plastic top over them to create a greenhouse effect:

I put them in the sun, not for light, but for warmth.

A couple of days later and this is what I have:

Pea sprouts.

I'm keeping them warm and moist and going to plant them as soon as I get a chance.

Happy Bean Flowering Day!

My Blue Lake Bush Beans are flowering:

Blue Lake Bush Beans with flowers
and other swelling buds

However, sadly, they overtook the peas to do it:

Poor English peas undone by beans

So, now I've learned, plant the beans all by themselves because they'll take over.

The Red Sails lettuce seems to be able to withstand the power of the beans' dark side, and  is doing a bit better outside--turning red again!--, but still a little droopy:

I'm going to plant some additional pea seeds in peat pots and then give them their own space.

No one is happier....

UPDATE:

Everyone began drooping when I brought them outside. I'm making them tough it out though. It's been a few hours and I note that there has been a little improvement. The beans and some of the lettuce is definitely perking up.

****************************

No one is happier than my Red Sails lettuce is today and their Blue Lake Bush bean roomates:

Now, that everyone is starting to get bigger, I'm wondering if I was unwise to plant them together. My thinking when I put them together was that it would be OK because they both have shallow roots (beans  lettuce). The beans required planting of 2" to 4" apart. The lettuce needed to be planted 8" apart. One problem for my beans could be that since they have delicate roots, close planting can cause root injury. My thinking was that the shallow lettuce roots might not damage the bean roots.

More from the Garden Club--Succession Greens and Lasagna

This is my second report on the meeting of my local Garden Club.

There were treats in the back of the room. When we went  back after the meeting to snack and schmooze, one man told me to start my seedlings outside and they will be heartier later on. To be more specific, we discussed starting them later (this is Chicago after all) and outside and certain plants such as onions, lettuce, spinach which all like the colder weather.

I Went to a Garden Party......

As I've mentioned before, I'm certainly no gardening expert. My history speaks more to a brown than a green thumb, and this blog is to chronicle my journey in an gardening attempt more than gardening per se. So, I was really happy to have been invited to attend my local garden club's montly meeting by a friend.

The speaker was Beth Botts. Ms. Botts is a gardening writer and consultant. She's written for the Chicago Tribune on staff and freelance, and for various gardening publications. She also has her own blog which you can find here.

My First Fatality of the Year

Sadly, I lost an English pea plant today. I'm sure it had nothing to do with Prince William marrying commoner, Kate Middleton.

The plant started to get sick while still in its peat pot. I think I let it dry out too much. While the peat pots allow for more growth than the seedling cell trays, peat pots dry out quickly in the sun and you have to be diligent to make sure the seedlings do not dry and wilt.


A happier pea plant wraps its tentacles around
the trellis. Peas are climbers.

I had replanted the sickly seedling along with it's pea plant buddies into a 30" long 6" deep window box and it seemed to perk up. Then, on Friday it collapsed again. I watered it and gave it a dose of garden soil inoculant near its roots, but the poor little thing didn't perk up.