What you can learnA detailed seed-grown strawberry trial covering germination, thinning, algae management, intra-garden transplanting, feeding, flowering, and preparation for an external bed.
I have prepared an area to transplant the strawberries to! Old deck box that I wasn't using. Scrap wood that was in the garage taking up space to hang the lights from. Lots and lots of potting soil. It's not quite big enough for all of the plants - I'll fit what I can and the rest are going outdoors. It'll have to wait a while, as it's still too early to plant outdoors (false spring right now, and I'm impatiently waiting for REAL spring!!!). But I'll be ready when it's time! Maybe on my next days off I'll go ahead and plant in the garage, since it stays nice and toasty in there at night, and leave the rest in AG until next month. We'll see!
I keep looking at these thinking "I should do something about this" and having absolutely no idea WHAT I should do. Trim it, ideally, but I'm kind of afraid I won't have any leaves left if I do, they're all at the very top of the stems :|
maskedsonnet , this article, strawberryplants.org/growing-strawberries-indoors/, doesn't say what to do with your tall strawberries, but it does have some interesting information for commercial farmers about growing hydroponic strawberries indoors.
That was a fascinating article, lynnee. I especially appreciated their advice on starting with the equipment you have, and the affect of temperature on fruit quality and taste.
As I slowly run out of space in that room, I've been thinking more and more about turning one side of my garage into a gardening area with grow lights, since I've only got one car to park in there and it's a 2-car garage. My biggest concern is how hot it gets here in the summer, the garage turns into an oven. So I'd have to figure something out to keep it cool, maybe a portable evap cooler. I've already got a heater in there for the plants that I over-winter in the garage, adding a cooler and a temperature sensor with smart outlets to turn them on and off as needed wouldn't be much of an issue. Anyways, the vague idea gets more serious and detailed every time I look at these and how they're growing up into the lights. Maybe I'll start tinkering and shoving things around in the garage on my days off, finally make up my mind!
Have you considered an insulated garage door? When mine needed replacing, I ordered an insulated one, but the installer brought an uninsulated one, so I accepted it. Thus I don't know whether insulation would prevent heating up in the afternoons, or make the problem worse by holding heat in.Something that I'm sure would help my situation would be to install a fan (like the ones used to cool attics). Some of my neighbors have done this.
We have an insulated door. It does not keep the cold or heat out. However it does help some. At least with ours and a single car garage and the door have windows at the top.
There are kits that let you insulate the garage door without buying a whole new one, maybe I'll look into that! Honestly it does a pretty good job already of keeping the cold out, it's always significantly warmer in the garage during the winter than it is outdoors. But I like to keep it around 60 in there for the plants I overwinter, and when it gets into single digits it's still cold enough in the garage to kill my plants without the heater. I think an exhaust fan like in an attic would be helpful to blow out some of the heat, but that's a little more involved than I want to get for now. We'll see how things evolve out there as I work on it!
I’ve stuck with good ol’ AG nutrients! I’ve been putting 20mL instead of the called-for 24 at feeding time and they seem pretty happy with it. I’ve actually never experimented with any supplemental nutrients in any of my garden projects, I just use AG to keep things simple for myself.
Nope! I'm sure I thought long and hard about what setting to use (it ended up on Peppers) but I honestly don't remember the logic behind that selection. Maybe because they both bear "fruit"?
The transplant did fine, so thinned out the last pod. I keep thinking "these are growing really slow" but then I go back and look at the last photos I took and realize these are actually growing really fast, I'm just being too impatient!!
Today was the day for thinning!! Before: After: On the left side I had one pod with only very tiny, unhealthy looking sprouts, so I plucked all those and transplanted a bigger sprout into it. Left one pod in the back with a couple sprouts in it so in case that transplant doesn't take, I'll have a second chance. Also added 20mL nutrients and some peroxide to both sides, as well as swabbing the tops of all the pods with peroxide, since the plants are still small enough that the algae is persisting.
These are starting to explode!! On my days off I'll start going through the pods with bigger sprouts to thin them out. I imagine by then I'll be ready to take the rest of the domes off, they're getting close!
Pretty much all my pods looks like this: Which is exciting! Waiting until the plants get much, much bigger to thin anything down. lynnee , thank you for the video!! I think the most amazing part was how big and LUSH his plants were at 5 weeks! And the flower at 7 weeks! Makes me super pumped to see how these plants develop! Hopefully I can avoid his root problems though, I'm not sure I'd have his patience with that
Ugh yeah, I thought about trying to swab it off, but I’m not sure how well I can do it without accidentally damaging the little seedlings. For now I’m going to leave it alone, and maybe try swabbing it off when the seedlings get a little bigger and less delicate.
So that's the algae that everyone talks about! I've never seen that in my gardens--only the white fuzz. Maybe it's our city water that retards algae growth. The water comes from an open reservoir that regularly develops algae blooms. When that happens the tap water sometimes looks a bit brown and has a mildly unpleasant taste. The utility assures us that the water is safe to drink, and the problem goes away in a few days. They probably treat the water with something that retards algae.
Lol yup, slimy and gross! Peroxide works well to kill it once you’ve got it, but lack of light is the best way to keep it from happening altogether. I added some to the tank to hopefully help out. It doesn’t really hurt anything, just a pain to clean it up and can possibly clog the pump if you let it get out of control in the tank. But for now it’s limited to the tops of my pods here - generally easy to control with a q-tip dipped in peroxide, as Shawn suggested. Usually seedlings come up so fast it’s not an issue, but these are so teeny they’re not blocking the light out yet
Have some faint signs of life in some of the strawberry pods I seeded them all pretty heavily, both because of how small the seeds are and because I'm still not totally sold on strawberry seeds having a high germination rate. We shall see!
Yay! looking good. Are you feeding it nutrients yet? My alpines just sprouted today and I will put multiple to a pod until i see leaves. I heard strawberries are fussy about too much nutrients.I don't wanna kill my seedlings. It took nearly 2 weeks to get 4 seeds (out of about 14) germinated with the paper towel method.
Yes, I fed them 15mL of the AG nutrients on each side when I put the pods in the hopes it would speed along germination. They can be sensitive to nutrient burn, so when it’s time for a second feeding I’ll probably cut it back to 10mL
maskedsonnet , this "Growing Strawberries From Seed to Strawberry" video is interesting. You have to admire him for keeping the plants going after they developed root rot! www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj424DJoN_1AhWbD0QIHfUnCwgQwqsBegQIBBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D7SoYyifZqlA&usg=AOvVaw25g_jCIZP6hZ-zx3FDxt7uHe has a few more strawberries videos, but I haven't watched them. I'd rather watch the experiments here.
Day 1
UPDATE#1
Grower update
Update #1
🔧Actions taken
🌱PlantingStarted red and yellow Alpine strawberries from seed.
I don't know if the thrip problem I suffered before came from my strawberry crowns or from the dirt I had for my potted plants, but I vowed never again to bring outside plants into that room again. So trying stawberries from seed! A red version and a yellow version of Alpine Strawberries:
I think that's what I remember too. I hear they are very, very tasty too!So, true confessions: How many AG's do you have?! They gotta keep you pretty busy, at times!
I have 7! They would keep me a LOT busier if I didn't have the extra reservoirs, and with my schedule it would be unfeasible to care for them all without them. I have a Farm 24XL, Farm 24 Basic, Sprout, Harvest 360, Harvest, Bounty Basic, and Bounty Elite. They keep me plenty busy on my days off, with the trimming and harvesting and watering, which is nice! Especially in the winter, when I get so bored with nothing to play with in the outdoor garden!
I've been thinking about getting another Farm 24XL too, but I'm not sure where I would put it!! It'd probably fit on the bottom shelf under the Farm Basic, but I'm don't want to sit on the floor to tend a garden - my knees don't like getting back up once I'm down there! Although with the garden kneeler my parents got me for Christmas it wouldn't be such an issue, it has nice tall handles to grab onto to help you get up
My Farms that are on the floor, are on a dunnage rack. It doesn't raise them a lot, just 8 inches, but it helps. That way, I can sit in my rolling office chair and just move from Farm to Farm. There are still times that there's no choice but to get down on my knees. I have a knee pad for that. I'm totally with you! The floor is not fun with the knees. I have a lot of vinyl records in a low cabinet. I use a pouf ottoman to sit on for that. It works well and keeps me from sitting on the floor, so getting up isn't toooooo tough! Your garden kneeler sounds like a great option!
I was able to find a plant stand from Amazon that is very close to spot on for holding the reservoirs next to the stacked AG's (2 Farm24+ models) on top of the dunnage rack (currently out of stock, but better price than restaurant supply as I don't get charged for shipping).
My ceiling's not high enough in the room I've got the gardens in to stack another XL on top of my current garden, which is a shame. I could fit another basic on top of it, but not sure I want another garden with such low clearance. I just measured the height of the shelf I was thinking of, and it's not quite tall enough for an XL but I could definitely fit a couple of Bounties there! Maybe if I ever move out of this house I'll be able to fit some more Farms in my life, but right now that room is completely packed full of all the shelves and tables I can get in there. Unless I find a new home for my papasan chair. Right now the best I could do would be bagging it up to protect the cushion and putting it in the garage for storage, but I like to sit in that room. But I am for sure going to buy a couple Bounties at some point to fill in that empty shelf! I keep holding onto the hope that the red Elite will be back in stock sometime, I want some of those so much