Potting up strawberries

A winter chore. A hiding from the swirling snow and cold outside.

No, wait. It’s still mild and warm. I don’t even need to hide in the potting shed.  There’s heaps to do out there.

But Artur is poorly (heaves and thowing up) and wants me to hang about. I am so used to him being a disdainful garden companion that it’s a bit of a shock to hear him bleat and look so baleful.

What he wants is for me to stay perfectly still on the chaise longue. So he can flop.

But we have had to reach a compromise. There is no way I’m going to be idle when there is such tremendous work to be done.

He can ‘supervise’ me potting up the strawberries on the potting bench.

Strawberries are a tremenous plant; you double your stock every year.  And as a gardener it is your job to manage that.

If you think about where they grow, it makes sense how they increase. In the forest woodland floor. Often shaded. Often underneath brambles. Rarely bothered by marauding herbivores who can’t reach.

So they start as one plant, and then throw out long runners which will arc out (like brambles), root and produce a new plant. Love that.

I even made time this autumn to peg down the runners to make sure they stayed in contact with the soil. And this week I snipped the parent runner (an umbilical chord if you like) and dug up the baby plants.

These ones are destined for Paul and Alice’s garden next month. I have so many in the garden that I made a whole row of them down the edge of the widest garden bed.

And you might even spot some are in flower.  A touch early. I’m leaving the windows and doors of the potting shed open so the bees (bumble bees) can pollinate them if they have a mind too. Right now they are a bit busy working away at the early daffodils out by the duck pond. And yes, forgive me for boring you, they are two months early.