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| Start of Strawberry bed. 5.8.15 |
The prior strawberry bed developed too many weeds. Most of the strawberry plants died. I had not been able to maintain it.
This is in an area not visible from the street or neighbor. For the moment, I mulched with newspaper. The boards are there to prevent wind from blowing the newspaper away. The cage is there for deer.
I added a couple of wheelbarrows of yard soil to the previous strawberry bed. The soil is from a pile we make from planting and removing sod. I mixed it into the compost amended soil and planted Roma and Yellow Wax bush beans, and a row of cilantro. I did not plant strawberries, not knowing if the strawberry plants died due to viral disease. Viral disease has been described as an issue with older strawberries, best to start a new bed.
My strawberry sucks. Last yr was bad, this yr awful. I think I need to dig them all up and rebuild the soil which was not done in the first place. Its worth doing work on because I like the fruit and they supposed to be easily grown around here.
ReplyDeleteI tried putting hay on them last winter. I have compost put on top but still tiny weak berries. I have Avalon and also a UC Davis kind.
In commercial fields in CA they use black plastic to cover up weeds and have the plants growing up on top of the plastic and have a very long yielding season because of the mild weather. I don't want plastic in my yard at all. right now the raspberry is coming strong so at least I'm not out of luck for my breakfast cereal.http://i1288.photobucket.com/albums/b499/lancegreen1/DSCF2653_zps5ogxxbgh.jpg
Strawberries always did well for me until last year. I read they develop viruses and the only thing to do is plant something else in that spot and plant new strawberry plants elsewhere. So the old strawberry bed will be bush beans, and the new one is where squashes were last year.
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