Digging Up Strawberry Runners

Propagating Strawberries is one of the simplest tasks in the Self Sufficient Garden. For non-alpine varieties, simply look out for runners. Let the small, new plant root of its own accord. After it’s rooted (can be as little as three weeks), dig up the new plant, snip the runner that joins it to the original plant, and replant in its desired location, or pot up in a small 3 or 4″ pot with some good quality potting compost. Water well and allow it to establish itself.

Strawberry Runner Ready For It's New Home

Technically you should keep the young strawberry in its new pot until around September time when it will be fully established and ready to fruit the following year. But often, needs must and time doesn’t allow and planting out much earlier or indeed digging up and moving runners earlier than this can still produce good results.

This year we’ve decided to move our main strawberry bed into the new Fruit Cage to protect the strawberries from the birds! We didn’t however decide to convert the old chicken run to a fruit cage until February this year, so our Strawberries were moved in March! Fingers crossed they’ll still perform. The soil in the fruit cage is very good and extremely well fertilized from our chickens, so we should be ok, so long as they get plenty of water.

If the soil hadn’t been naturally fertilized by the chickens, I would normally feed new strawberry plants at least once a fortnight with Phostrogen or other Nitrogen rich fertilizer. (Homemade fertilizer made from Nettles is a good one to use).

In late spring/early summer flowers will begin to blossom on your new plants (hopefully), which means fruit will follow shortly. Some experts say not to pick the fruit from new strawberry plants in their first year, but honestly, who can wait that long & does it really make that much difference?

Personally I think if there fruit is there, it’s waiting to be eaten, so make the most of your new crop!

Planting Up The Runner In Its New Home.

Most of the time, it’s a numbers game: sow enough, water & feed them when required and you’re pretty much guaranteed to have enough to fulfill your requirements for the year.

Growing from seed

The basic requirements for growing any fruit or veg from seed is a good quality seed or multi-purpose compost. We generally tend to use Wickes or B&Q Multi-purpose compost, which gives us good results most of the time, with little need to keep lots of bags of different compost lying around the place. If you want to use a dedicated Seed Compost to try and get better results, i.e. more seeds germinating, try something like John Innes Seed Compost, available from most DIY stores and garden centres.

Melon Seedling

You’ll also need a good supply of Plug Trays, or seed trays, which can be picked up for just a few pounds for a large pack from places like Wilkinsons here in the UK.

A warm windowsill is all that’s needed as a place to get your seeds to germinate.

Whilst growing from seed is the cheapest way to produce more plants, you can often end up inundated with too many seedlings. Always have a backup plan in mind to deal with your surplus seedlings. Selling them from your driveway or swapping them with other keen local gardeners is a great way to pass on your spare seedlings to other gardeners. This year we’re going to give the Driveway Sales idea a go with any spare plants.

Personally, growing from seed gives you that extra satisfaction of growing the veg right from scratch! From seed to plate… you can’t get better than that!

All our seeds this year were purchased here

Growing on from Seedlings

Growing your veg plants on from seedlings is a great way to get started if you’re a little late to sow seeds or you don’t fancy your chances starting from scratch. Good quality seedlings can be purchased via mail order, from garden centres and diy stores, or traded/purchased through local gardening clubs or private Driveway sales etc. Look for good, stocky seedlings with strong growth. Try to avoid tall “Leggy” plants as these may not grow to be the strongest plants or give the best crops.

By buying seedlings, you have the luxury of just buying what you need, meaning less waste of unused plants, but if you happen to lose any to frost/pests you could may end up without a backup.

To “grow on” seedlings you’ll need a good selection of plastic plant pots and multi-purpose compost.

Our Lettuce Bed In The Making

Lettuce is something we get through by the ton! Week in week out all through the year we consume at least 1 or 2 a week. More in summer. And after our reasonable results last year, but total lack of planning, I want to really get on top of our Lettuce supply for the next 12 months!

Last year we grew our lettuce in a combination of the greenhouse, and one of the raised beds. This is great for getting them started, but due to the nature the greenhouse, obviously being hot, and the raised bed being in full sun, we really struggled with keeping the lettuce under control and preventing them from bolting.

A little research via google and after a few chats with my Father, we’ve come to the conclusion that lettuce should, despite what the packet says, be grown in the shade.

So… what to do? Well there’s plenty of shade in our garden, but most of it is in established borders and beds that are filled with perennials and shrubs. Looking around our plot, it seems the best place to put the lettuce bed is next to the tool shed.

It now has a couple of miscellaneous shrubs in the approx 5ft x 2.5ft bed, oh and a variegated holly bush which seems to suffer from constant mildew. If we take the first two bushes out, it’s going to make an ideal lettuce bed, and if we leave the Holly in there, it’ll give the lettuce even more shade on summer mornings, plus keep the big chicken wire covered fruit cage hidden from view when we’re down in the house or out on the lawn.

Removing Large Shrubs & Tree Stumps

The two shrubs we need to remove to make way for the lettuce stand almost 6ft tall, and I’ve given them a try with a fork to see if I can loosen the roots, but they won’t budge. So it’s time for some serious brute force.

Turfer - Ideal for pulling out tree stumps & shrubs

The quickest way to remove tree stumps, shrubs & other large plants is with a Turfer. This is a great piece of equipment that you can pull pretty much anything out of the ground with. You strap one end to something fixed (or at least bigger and heavier than what you’re trying to pull out). The other end is shackled to the tree/shrub. You then flick the Turfer into gear, and start winding. As wind the turfer, magical things begin to happen, and slowly but surely, the then fixed tree stump or shrub slowly but surely begins to part company with the earth!

About to remove the second shrub

I gave both shrubs a bit of a hair cut so I could maneuver around them, then shackled up the turfer and got pulling. After under a minute of winding for each shrub, both were out and ready to be chopped up and composted, leaving a nice sized bed with what looks like very good soil. With a bit of a tidy up, this should look and perform very well for us this year!

Preparing the fruit cage.

Now that our chickens have been relocated to a new home a few miles away, we can make good use of their old run as one of the sturdiest fruit cages known to man kind! Plus, the chickens have spent the past twelve months making the soil extremely rich and fertile, which should really help.

The fruit cage is approx 3m x3m and built from sturdy 3×2″ timber, covered in 1″ chicken wire. Enough to keep any dastardly pigeon or black bird at bay I think.

Preparing the fruit cage for planting:

As the soil in the fruit cage had been well fertilized by our chickens, digging in any manure or proprietary fertilizer wasn’t necessary in this instant, so we just gave the ground a good forking over, turning the top layer underneath and aerating it a little. The soil is extremely light and very dark, so I’m hoping it’ll prove a good medium for growing our berries.

Once we’d forked the ground over, I gave it a good run over with the Hand Tiller which broke up any big clumps of soil, ready for us to start planting.

Dwarf Cherry Tree

The first thing to go into the new fruit cage was the cherry tree which has been residing in a large pot for a good couple of years. It has always fruited in the pot but I can’t say the fruit we get has been bountiful. Probably due to slightly erratic watering during the summer months. Once it’s established in the ground though it should do much better.

Planting the Cherry Tree is quite a simple process. Dig a hole large enough to accept the trees root ball. As our ground had been suitably fertilized by the chickens, extra manure wasn’t necessary this time. In regular soil I would have dug the hole a little deeper and filled the base of it with some very well rotted horse manure.

The tree was eased out of its large pot with a lot of tugging and pulling, eventually freeing its rather compacted roots, then heaved into the prepared hole. The space around the roots was then back-filled with fine soil, and firmed with the heel of my welly!

Once in place, we gave the tree a good soaking to help it get used to its new home.

Raspberry Canes

As Raspberries seem to love to multiply and multiply at an alarming rate of knots, we decided rather than buy new canes, we’d transplant our primary Rasberry bush and then also try and move its current batch of offspring which were multiplying through our raised beds.

If this works, it’ll save us a fortune on new canes and give us a really good crop too.

In preparation for moving, the oldest wood on the main bush was cut to about 3″ above ground level. The newer wood trimmed slightly, but left at almost full height. This hopefully, should give us 2 crops this year. One in early summer, one towards autumn. I’ll post more info on how this works later.

Moving the raspberry canes is pretty easy. Just ease up the root of each cane with either a fork or trowel depending on how big it is. Prepare a suitable sized hole in your new bed. Drop the cane into its new home and fill the soil in around the root, gently firming it in place.

Once all your canes are planted up, give them a good water and they should take hold pretty quickly. Raspberries are very tough and can stand being moved around quite a bit.

Stage 1 of the fruit cage complete!

Fruit Cage All Planted Up With Dwarf Cherry and Raspberry Canes

With the Raspberry canes and the cherry tree in place it was time for a nice cuppa and scone in the garden while we contemplate the rest of the tasks ahead. There’s still room for a few more fruit bushes in the cage so it’ll be a battle of wills on our part this time to decide what fruit goes in the next… Blackberries, Blueberries, Black Currants? We’ll see!

The Veg Plot

Planning what you’re going to grow is important and should be decided upon as early as possible in the year, to give you plenty of time for preparation and organization. Growing too much can result in a poor harvest due to overcrowding and a lack of time to maintain everything among other things. Growing too little will leave me kicking myself as we run short of staple crops like lettuce, cucumber & tomatoes for example.

This year, we’ve decided to try and plan ahead, in good time I hope. Our garden is split up into several areas at present, meaning there is no single large veg plot. We’ve got 5 raised beds, 1 green house, a few borders, and now that the chickens have gone, we are using the area that used to be theirs to grow soft fruit. Their old pen makes a perfect fruit cage, so we’re planning to fill it with Raspberry Canes, Cherries and other soft fruit.

To try and get ourselves on track earlier this year, Tina and I sat down during the latter part of January & early February to work out what crops we were going to grow this year so we could start to plan out our plot, so we can get the most produce possible from it.

This Years Crops

Soft Fruit

• Strawberries*
• Raspberries*
• Rhubarb*
• Gooseberries*
• Cherries*
• Blackberries*

Salad Crops

• Tomatoes
• Cucumber
• Radish
• Beetroot
• Celery
• Lettuce (Several varieties)
• Spring Onion
• Cress

Vegetables

• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Courgette
• Pepper
• Peas
• Onions
• Leeks

Herbs

• Chives*
• Basil
• Corriander
• Mint*
• Parsley

* Indicates plants that are already established in our garden. If space allows we will be increasing the quantities of them for this current season.

Runner Beans - One of the easiest crops to grow!

The variety I’m growing this year are “Prize Winner Stringless” which I picked up in my local Wilkinsons store in March. You can sow them directly in the soil or in a large compost filled pot in late may when the frosts have past, or you can start them off in small pots to give them a bit of a head start, which is my preference.

Getting Ready To Sow!

All you need to get these going is a suitable plant pot or container. Something 3″ to 4″ diameter is about right. I’ve used old Baked Bean tins with holes punched in the bottom with a nail for drainage.

Put 2 Beans In Each Pot...

Fill your pot with about 2/3 seed compost. I’m using Wickes Multi-Purpose compost which cost about £4.50 for 70 litres. Place 2 beans in each pot. Runner Beans do have quite a high success rate when it comes to germination, so don’t plant the whole pack otherwise you’ll have more bean plants than you know what to do with.

Cover With More Compost & Water Well

Cover the beans with a further inch or so of compost. Water well, and leave in a warm place. I just left mine on the staging in the greenhouse to germinate. Germination should take around 7 to 10 days. I’ve sown about 12 seeds this year so it’ll be interesting to see how many plants we get.

Three Weeks Later

After just three weeks in a moderately warm place such as an unheated greenhouse or a windowsill, and we have this…

Runner Bean Plants After 3 Weeks

Another week or two depending on how warm it is and these will be ready to harden off and be planted in the veg plot.

1. Recycle Fruit & Veg Packaging. Tomatoes, Strawberries and even ready meals from the supermarket come in plastic trays. This are just the right size for sowing a few lettuces in to get them started. You can’t put too many seeds in these so get one going every 2 weeks for a continuous crop throughout the summer and long into the winter. Proprietary seed trays can cost up to £15 for 5! These are free!
   

   Ready Meal & Strawberry Trays Used To Grow Lettuce

2. Use Old Bean Tins For Your Runner Beans. We end up with loads of these. Whilst we normally recycle them anyway we thought we’d recycle them again and use them to get our runner beans going.
   

   Using Old Bean Tins To Grow Runner Beans

3. Seed & Plant Swaps. Many local allotment groups hold regular seed and plant swaps. You can either contribute by giving away some of your plants, or make a monetary donation in exchange for a few expertly grown local specimens.
4. Make Your Own Plant Markers. Collect Lollipop sticks when your kids have an ice lolly, or make your own by cutting up old margarine tubs etc. Write on them with a fine tipped permanent market and they’re as good as any you buy. These take seconds to make and cost nothing at all.
   

   Homemade Plant Markers

5. Compost Compost Compost. OK, you might not be able to produce your own top quality seed compost, but home composting is a great way to make use of kitchen scraps and gardening waste. Add the manure from your chickens if you have them, or grab a few handfuls of nettles and drop them in every so often, and you’ll have a very potent, good quality compost to use in your pots and as a soil improver in just a few months.

Tomatoes Ready For Planting Out

Now I feel really guilty this year… I bought my Tomato & Cucumber plants from B&Q! In the past I’ve always been loyal to our local garden centres, but this year a 2 for 1 offer or some such thing caught my eye and I grabbed half a dozen. Anyway, they’re quite stocky specimens so they should do ok. I’ve been hardening them off a bit by leaving them outside during the day for the last week, so now the green house is ready, In they go!

The Tomatoes

We’ve got three types of tomato going in this year, Moneymaker, Gardeners Delight and on other who’s name escapes me.

• Moneymaker is an excellent tomato for the Home Gardener. High yielding and producing medium sized fruit. It will also grow equally well outdoors as in a green house. Providing it’s in a very sunny position that is, to get the fruit to ripen nicely.

• Gardeners Delight is another high yielding variety, this time giving nice bite sized fruit with plenty of flavour. Again these can be grown indoors or out.

I’ll check the third variety when I let the chickens out in a bit!

Tomato Plants In Position

Hopefully with the tomato plants being in the greenhouse this year, we’ll get a better crop and better ripening than we did last year in our old garden.

Here You Can Just See Vertical String Tomato Supports... Hope they work!

To support the tomatoes, I’m trying the vertical string method. The description on the back of the label with the tomatoes is a bit vague, so I’ve just dangled strings down to the plants for now. I’m not sure if they grab hold of them as they grow, or if I need to wrap the string round the plants as they grow I’m not quite sure… a bit of Googling needed maybe!

The strings are supported by a horizontal wire at the minute, but I know the plants are going to get heavy as we progress into summer so a stronger support is most likely needed here. I’ll get my thinking cap on.

The Cucumber

We’ve gone for one, heavy cropping cucumber this year to see how we get on. I grew a cucumber plant outdoors a couple of years a go and it did ok, but I neglected it a bit, so this time I’m going to try and do it properly! I’ve followed Alys Fowler’s tip when planting it out which is to plant the cucumbers root ball so it’s slightly raised or mounded up. Cucumbers are prone to rotting off if they sit with water around their stems. Mounding them up apparently stops this, so thank you Alys for that tip! I’ve also started to make a basic cucumber support to keep the fruits off the ground once it gets going. I’ll post that shortly.

A Handful Of Radishes

You can’t been home grown radishes on a Salad, so I’ve left room in front of the tomatoes on both sides of the greenhouse to get a few radishes going. They’re a fast growing crop, from seed to plate in 4 to 6 weeks. They’re easy to sow and grow too, which is handy. Just make a 1.5cm deep trench or drill with the end of a trowel or hoe. Sprinkle the seeds in. I left about 3/4 of an inch between each seed to save me thinning them later. Cover them over and give them a good watering (with a bit of Miracle Grow for good measure). I only sowed half a row for now, I’ll sow some more in a fortnights time to give me a continuous crop for as long as possible. Fingers crossed by mid may I’ll have home grown radishes about ready to eat.

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The Greenhouse Before!

It’s been a few years since I had a green house at my disposal and I’m really pleased the previous owners of our house left this one behind. An essential component in the Self Sufficient Gardeners arsenal, the Green House will be a very busy place indeed. At least that’s the plan.

Ours is 6′x8′ and is in pretty good condition although it still needs a little TLC in places. It’s perfectly good enough to grow a few Tomato & Cucumber plants this season though, and will probably keep our lettuce crops going until well into the winter with any luck.

The only big problem with this greenhouse though was that it was standing on a fully slabbed base, meaning Tina & I couldn’t plant anything directly in the ground, which is in my opinion, essential if you don’t want to be watering your Tomatoes every five minutes during hot summer months!

One Of The Dug Out Beds

Making The Beds

To solve this we grabbed a hammer and bolster chisel and started to hack away at the slabs until we could remove a few sections of the slabs each side to make a couple of beds about 6 feet by 1.5 feet. Now I honestly thought, as it’s a greenhouse, the slabs would either be laying directly on bare earth, or maybe a couple of inches of sharp sand, but no. This greenhouse base was built to survive a world war! Firstly there was 4 inches of quarry waste and chippings to get through! Followed by another 6 inches of rubble and hardcore!

IT’S A GREENHOUSE FOR GOODNESS SAKE!

So what I thought would be an afternoons work, tops, turned out to be a day and a half’s worth of shoveling and wheel-barrowing!

Tina Preparing The Beds In The Greenhouse

Filling Up The Beds

Once the beds were dug out it was time to fill them all back in again with top soil we’d saved from leveling the chickens run and a couple of bags of decent quality peat free compost. We chose peat free for the reduced environmental impact on our rapidly vanishing peat bogs! To add a bit of extra Zing to the beds we also mixed in some well rotted Chicken Manure (which we always have plenty of!). This should give our crops a bit of a boost with any luck.

Getting Rid Of The Bugs & Nasties

Once the beds were ready it was time to give the greenhouse a quick clean to rid any remaining bugs and nasties from the place.  The best way to do this is with a liberal dose of Jeyes Fluid. It’s easy to use, cheap and very effective. You can get it at any diy store or buy it online if you wish. It’s a general disinfectant that will kill off most things but won’t harm your plants or your pets.

A couple of buckets of Jeyes fluid were mixed up and we gave the whole place a darn good scrub, rinse and left it to dry overnight…

I can’t wait to get the plants in now!…

Free Ranging Hens - Destructive Little Buggers!

The idea of Free Ranging chickens is great in an idea world. But in the real world, in a small to medium garden, it’s a recipe for a disaster coated in chicken poo and big holes.

Chickens love to scratch, forage and dig nice big holes to have dust baths. But they’re definitely not picky about where they do it! When we moved into our new house back in December, obviously nothing much was growing so we let the chickens roam about most of the time rather than being cooped up in their temporary home (The Aviary) all day long, which was driving them nuts.

This was great for a few weeks, but it didn’t take long for 99% of the garden to end up bathed in chicken poo and for large holes to start appearing in what were once flower beds and nice tidy borders. Their foraging and constant scratching, which is what a chicken is programmed to do has now resulted in widespread carnage throughout our garden, and now that Spring is here, there’s a constant battle between chicken & nature is the daffodils try to make it all the way to blooming before they’re decapitated by a ravenous Big Bird!

So after much thought, this has now resulted in us planning to build a much larger coop and run for them to inhabit for the majority of the time. As much as we like our chickens to be free ranging, it’s going to be impossible for them to be 100% free range AND grow fruit and veg at the same time. When we have a bigger plot (the small holding we’ve always dreamed of) maybe they can be totally free range. Until then… there’s a new home planned for our girls around Easter!