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Gardening FAIL: Growing Strawberry Plants in Rain Gutters

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I’ve been feeling an urgency to get this blog post update out, because I have been seeing ridiculous growing traffic on our Strawberry Planting in Rain Gutters post.  And I think we should let you all know, that growing strawberry plants in rain gutters hasn’t turned out so well for us.  And by that I mean….well, they are all dead. Big gardening fail. It’s true. Take a look for yourself.

Are we missing any signs of life here, People? Yeah, we didn’t think so.
<Sigh.>
I had such high hopes. It was this photo below, that I saw online, that really had me daydreaming, about growing a wealth of strawberries from rain gutters, like this……
[Read more…]

Protecting the Strawberries Growing in Gutters

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 I’ve been procrastinating doing this post that some of you have been waiting for, on the topic of how we’re protecting our strawberry gutter plants from birds, squirrels, and other small creatures that may be drawn to our delicious berries, and have their fill of our harvest.  The reason I have been hesitant, is because I’ve come to realize I’m not thrilled with our solution, nor excited to share it with you.  I’d even go so far as to say that in all of the years Michael and I have collaborated together over creative projects, and problem-solving, this is one we just never saw eye to eye. Our visions and plans were completely different, and……being the clever guy he often proves to be, I let him do it his way.  As a result, well……I’ll just say he may have been having an off day. My idea was far simpler, and I think would have been easier for me to manage. (I may be wrong. I’d need to experience it, to know for sure. But it works in my head!)  Does this system do the job? [Read more…]

Strawberry Planting in Rain Gutters

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 We’ve have grown strawberries in our gardens going for five seasons now, and we have thoroughly enjoyed it!
While strawberry plants generally comes back and produce for 3-4 years before they are done, we managed to squeeze one more year out of ours. This year however, it was truly time to start over. And so, we decided to really change things up and start anew, by planting and growing our new strawberry plants in rain gutters. We’ll be sharing with you this fun gardening experiment and the progress of it all, with any of it’s failures or successes, as we go along here. We know we can always make improvements if need be, as we learn. Meanwhile, we enjoy the process so much. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
This is the first post on our strawberry plantings in rain gutters, and we’re starting with the construction and set up of it.


But before we dig into our new strawberry growing system, why don’t we briefly review our past strawberry growing years, of which we learned much and had much success with.  We’ve have many blog posts on our strawberries over the past years, but not everyone has been following us for that long. So allow me to mention the highlights, with links to the original posts where there is more info, since could be interesting or helpful information for someone.
If you’re just interested in getting right to the rain gutter method, just skip right down to that sub-headline.


Our Strawberry Growing History and Links to Those Past Posts

When we built our new strawberry bed in 2009, with new plantings in it, it wasn’t 24 hours before we realized squirrels and birds were going to be a problem!
So that very first morning, Michael whipped us up a solution with his carpentry skills, that has served us quite well, protecting our strawberries from winged and furry creatures, every year since.
There was some real excitement over our first picked strawberry.

We shared many of our lessons learned while growing strawberries.
And we certainly enjoyed our delicious berries, having many-a-strawberry shortcake, learning to make and can jam, and other treats such as Strawberry and Chocolate Nachos, and this beautiful Berry Parfait.

All of those links above open in a new window, so feel free to bookmark or pin them on your interest boards for later.

Anyway, while we got a great crop of berries every year, our 4th year was probably the most abundant, and so we thought maybe we could get one more year out of them. And also, we knew it would be soon time to replace all of our garden beds, but we hoped to get one more year out of them as well. So we went for a fifth year, which was less productive, and confirmed to us that it was time to start over with some new baby starter plants.

Strawberry Planting in Rain Gutters

Which brings us to this season.
As I’ve mentioned, our garden beds were needing replacing.  Last season, we had some wood rot and termite problems insome of them, but we got through one more season with them, and they served their purpose and got us through one more year. But this past brutal winter really gave them the last kick in the pants, and they literally just started falling apart as spring broke.  That’s including our strawberry bed. But since it was time to start again with new strawberry plantings anyway, the timing was perfect to start everything all over from scratch.

So we got planning all of our new garden beds, and already have them built.  We’ll be sharing the rest with you in another upcoming post.
But for the strawberry growing, we decided to try using rain gutters!


I had seen this photo somewhere, and I was instantly intrigued.  I believe another Facebook Page shared it, and then I shared it to our Facebook Page.  Many of us got talking about it, and we trying to figure out the construction of it, how high they were, and how they were protected from birds and such, if at all.
All I knew was I really wanted to try something like it.

I showed Michael, and he liked the idea too. But he got drawing on paper (as he always does, if you’ve noticed with our projects over the years), and had his own tweeks.  While I always have ideas of my own, and we collaborate a lot, I trust him in the final decisions where the construction goes.

Here’s what he came up with.

Using 4×4′ pressure treated posts, he cut them into 6 ft. and 4 ft. pieces, constructing 3 T structures, all screwed together.
They support four 10 ft. sections of aluminum rain gutters, with end caps, which were bought separately.
They are screwed securely onto the horizontal posts.
I just imagined them higher, even though I knew it would be difficult to tend to the plants. But he thinks more height isn’t necessary. So we’ll see there if it is is better in the long run, to make them higher. But right now, I’m glad I can just stand there at them, and do my gardening thing.

I planted a good many of our new plantings, but the sun was hit this day, and it was getting to me. So a couple of my helpers (also known as our kids) happily agreed to help finish getting them all done.

Although as I planted, I was wondering if the gutters were quite deep enough, having to plant right to the bottom, they seem to be doing all right!
As evidenced by home much we have seen them grow day to day, and by that little white bloom you see in the photo above. Which by the way, I cut off. Reason being, I really want to be sure the plants roots are well established, before the plant starts producing berries. So I usually remove the first flowers of every season, before I let them go ahead and produce berries.


You can see they are thriving, and I am really excited to see how they grow, flow over, and produce.
The varieties we chose this year are compact plants. We’ll talk more about that in a minute.
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Michael drilled holes in the gutter towards the bottom, every 1-1/2′ or so, for proper drainage.

In the past in our strawberry bed, we grew berries of the June-bearing and Ever-bearing variety. In time we decided we just preferred the June-bearing, so we ripped out all of the Ever-bearing.

This time, considering we are growing them in rain gutters, we decided to try more compact plants.
These will produce few, if any, runners.  So I’m not sure quite what to expect, in terms of spreading or filling in the gutters.  But it’ll be fun to find out!
I did put all of the plants in with the upper part of the biodegradable cup intact, so it may be awhile before we really see them go anywhere.

None the less, I’ve done some research, and I expect we’ll be quite pleased with the varieties we chose.  Both are ever bearing varieties though, which should give us berries throughout the season. But I’m a tad nervous only because it was the ever-bearing we had decided we were less happy with in the beds.  But we’ll see how they do in the rain gutters!

The Lorans produce the typical white bloom, and should give us rounder, plump, juicy berries.
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The Tristans are a little more unusual. They actually produce dark pink blooms, and the berries are an off shape as well. They are a bit elongated, and kind of pointy. But I’ve heard they too are delicious!
I can’t afford to have any more outlinks in this post, as I’m already afraid it’s going to go to the spam folders of our subscribers. But if you are interested, do Google for more info on these 2 strawberry varieties. BonniePlants(dot)com looked like a great resource. Then use the search tool there.

We had impulsively picked up a couple of herb plants too. Which is new territory for us.
Since we had a little room left in the gutters, and no other plans for the herb plants yet, we stuck them in the gutters too.
I’m not sure how well they will do there, but we can always dig them out and replant them elsewhere.

So we’ve got some Parsley……


……as well as some Oregano. (Which will be delicious, on Michael’s pizza.)
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So that’s concludes where we are at with our new experiment, of growing strawberry plants in rain gutters.
BUT, it’s not quite done!
As soon as we start letting the plants produce berries, we’ll have the next step to contend with:

UP NEXT on this topic:  Protecting them from birds, squirrels, and the like.
We do have a plan for that of course!  And we’re ready to go!
Be sure you are following us so you don’t miss that, the reveal of our other new garden beds, or the building of our chicken coop!
(SO excited to finally be getting chickens!)
Thanks for your visits!  Share your thoughts  or questions with us, if you’ve got some!  We always try to respond.

UPDATE:
Click HERE to see how these strawberry plants in rain gutters are looking one year later.



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A Simple Pallet Compost Bin and Learning Organic Composting

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I’ve finally jumped. We have built a simple compost bin, for the purpose of learning some organic composting, and it’s (hopefully) already cooking.

com·post
/ˈkämpōst/

Noun – Decayed organic material used as a plant fertilizer.

Verb – Make (vegetable matter or manure) into compost: “don’t compost heavily infested plants”.

Synonym – fertilize – manure

For as long as I have been gardening, I have wanted to be making my own organic compost for our gardens.  Because we all know that what one is trying to grow organically, is going to grow best in healthy, rich, organic soil, that derives from organic compost.  While on the one topic I have learned a lot and made physical progress with gardening over the past several years, on the other, we have been buying compost in bags for the gardens. Reason being; every time I research and start reading about making organic compost, I get confused and overwhelmed with all of the info I am finding online. It just seems….complicated, and too specifically scientific, and . . . . I’ve just been afraid that while I have managed to make 4 beautiful and healthy children, I am somehow going to fail at making some good healthy dirt!

But then, I found myself inspired and encouraged, thanks to an online friend, when [Read more…]

Lessons Learned with Growing Strawberries

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Here at our bitty homestead, we’re in our fourth year of gardening in the raised beds that Michael built.  This includes growing strawberries, which has come with a few surprises and lessons learned, some quite by accident! I thought I would tell you a little bit about that today. Especially because lately, we’ve had more strawberries than we’ve known what to do with, and it was the last thing we expected.

The first thing we learned, the very next morning after planting our very first strawberry starter plants 4 years ago, was that we needed to find a way to protect them from the birds and small animals, if we ever wanted to have any berries to pick.  There were squirrels feasting on our new plantings in our bed, and that put Michael in high gear. By the end of the day, he had built this ‘cover’ for the strawberry bed, that has protected it 100% ever since. It is just made of chicken wire and strapping, but it has been the perfect solution. It lets all of the light and rain/water in, the hungry critters out, and lifts right off for picking time.

lessons-learned-growing-strawberries Initially, we had planted both Ever Bearing, as well as June Bearing plants.  But after 2 years and not being so happy with the June Bearing plants, we ripped them out at the beginning of last season, and let the Ever Bearing take over. They were just too small, and not as good as the Ever Bearing. We weren’t sure we’d get any more Ever Bearing berries out of it that late in the game, but at least the June Bearing were out of the way.

lessons-learned-growing-strawberries-1 In the first couple seasons of production, we got some consistent berries to pick.  There were some every day. But rarely enough all at once, to really do anything with. So we just ate them snack-style all within the day we picked them. Year/Season 3 (last year) was better in the overall crop, with the Ever bearing having taken over the bed, and producing after all. We actually had enough at once to have dessert a few times.  I also saved the berries picked a few(0ther) days in a row, vacuum sealed them in a freezer bad, labeled and dated the bag, and put them in the freezer.

BTW, the vacuum sealer machine was a brand called ME. ; ) I sealed the bag tightly with a drinking straw stuck in the bag, put my hot lips up to it, and sucked all of the air out myself! Until it was pretty shrunk-wrapped looking, and I was blue.

lessons-learned-growing-strawberries-2
Now here are two things to take note of, in our new strawberry growing experience:

1) In the beginning, we had researched a lot on strawberries, and read that strawberry plants tend to only produce for about 3 years, before you really need to start again, because they won’t produce much anymore.  The first season is also expected to be somewhat of a slimmer crop, because the roots are really just trying to get established in the soil. In fact, it’s recommended that you pluck off the first flowers that produce (indications that a strawberry is about to form there), to give those roots more time to establish well.

2) Another thing we had read to do, was to cut or mow the plants down to an inch or 2 at the end of the season, and cover the whole bed with hay, or some other non-seed producing mulch, for the frost season.  Then in the spring after any risk of frost had passed, you could remove the top layer or so if there was a lot of it, but that generally the plants would grow right up through it – and then prior to breaking ground, the plants down in the soil would be protected from cold temperatures. So that’s what we did, and we found all of that to be true.In the meantime, my friend Paula told me that some woman Ann…or Annie Something….(I gathered from the way I was told, that I should know who this woman was…), highly recommends not covering your beds with any extra mulch of any kind.

However, come the end of Season/Year 3, we figured those plants were DONE anyway. We had gotten 3 years out of them, and planned on plating new starters the following spring.  So did not bother covering the bed with hay. We just let all of the abundance of plants, with stems, runner, leaves and all, just die there in the bed.  By autumn, it was looking as neglected and ugly as could be, in that cage. And early spring was not looking much better.

Until, new green plants broke through the broken down decay all around it.  We still figured they would develop much, and that we’d need to plant new at the end of May or so. But they just kept growing, and then they were flowering and producing like (not yet mature) berries, all through May.  By June, we were picking!

lessons-learned-growing-strawberries-3 Our very first picking, was a pretty healthy bunch!  But there were SO many more than these, that we would have picked as well. We just wanted to give them one more day. From then on, there were many strawberries that needed to be picked, every day or 2! So we had to gather, that Ann(ie) Something was right. There is no need to go through the extra efforts, or expense, of covering the beds with any other form of mulch, to protect them plants from the cold.  The plants all dying down at the end of their season, establish themselves as their own bedding cover. In fact, it seems allowing that, by intended means of giving up these old plants, somehow reaped a supposed extra year of production, and our overall best and largest season of strawberries ever!

So as you have probably gathered by now, we’ve been learning along the way here, and it’s been delicious and rewarding!  Who knows.  Maybe we’ll get a 5th year out of these plants, next year? Yeah…..likely not. But we all feel like we know more now, to be more successful in growing strawberries, than ever. That’s really part of the fun of gardening: learning!  The kids have labored and learned right along with us, and it’s been so wonderful.

lessons-learned-growing-strawberries-4 You might be wondering, what we did with having such a constant flow of incoming fresh strawberries on our hands.  Well……we ate some as we washed them.  Some were fresh berries on top of our cereal in the morning. There was Strawberry Shortcake to be had, a few times.  And lastly, some more went into the freezer for the plan of making jam, and others were made into a new and creative snack dessert.  The last two mentioned, are new strawberry-themed posts, coming up soon.  So stay with us!

Do you grow strawberries?  In beds or out of the ground? How do you keep the birds and critters from eating them?
Tell us about your strawberry-growing experiences, or hopes.

. . . . . .

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