Tuesday 24 August 2010

My strawberry

This time I would like to introduce my strawberry.

My strawberries

My strawberries growing nicely


This was the second plant I got in japan. I bought it at a supermarket one time I went grocery shopping. They had them on sale close to the exit. It seem nice and easy to grow so I could not resist them.

Little did I know that this will turn out to be the most complicated and full of surprises plant I ever had.

This is another case of me not really knowing what to do, but after some research I was able to find how to take care of my strawberry.

At first all was perfect. I got them in September, put them on a small pot and they thrive for a month or so, they overgrew the pot really fast so I went and bought a big one. I change them to the big pot where it continue to growing and start to multiply. By late October they started to bloom. I found this a little odd because they were supposed to bloom only in spring, that’s what it says on the label. Of course I was excited about having a successful crop and of course I wasn't going to complain about some extra strawberries, so I let them continue.
But then the problems started. After some continuous days of pure rain the strawberries got some strange white velvet fungus. It turn out to be powdery mildew but I didn’t know that back then. Sad news the crop was lost. I tried to do what I could, water properly, more sun, cut the infected part, all I could, but the strawberries didn’t recover until the end of winter.

At that time I moved from Tokyo to Yokohama and the strawberries started to look better, they grew very healthy and in spring they started to bloom. It was all great until I had to travel abroad for some time, when I got back problems started again. The powdery mildew was back. No crop for the spring.

Besides from that the fungus I also had to deal with aphids, beetles, vacation drought, and many other problems.

It sure has been hard work all the way but my strawberry has surprised me all along. For example after finally being able to deal with the powdery mildew in June they bloom again and I managed to get some very delicious July harvest.

And the biggest surprise is that after dealing with beetles and a second vacation drought my strawberries are blooming now! At the end of August. I will make sure I write another post about that.

My garden July 01, 2010

This was the result of all the hard work


In the end my strawberries have been the most rewarding of all my plants. I can't wait to see what next year will bring.


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