Vertical Strawberry Planter

I'm rubbish at growing strawberries. 

I can grow most things but strawberries somehow never work for me. 

Now I can keep the plants alive and healthy but somehow I always end up feeding something else, either mice, birds or slugs. I've tried netting them, and growing them in different ways, I've had some success with white alpine strawberries but I always thought I could do a lot better.

So on Thursday my mum came over to help look after the children while I got on with some jobs. The boy, however, wasn't playing ball and was being quite a daddies boy, no chance of working on the extension so I decided to tackle a little project I'd been thinking of for ages. I took the boy with me and made the project outside with him watching me from the pushchair, he was as good as gold and laughed every time I drilled or made a loud noise!

I made a couple of A frames to start with

Keen to learn!

Two A frames put together, 4ft apart, bracing added next

Adding the guttering to hold the plants

The planter in place but it will be moved soon.

For the last few years when I've been doing roofs for customers houses I've been saving the old gutter with this project in mind. 

Although the guttering isn't that deep I'm only going to grow alpine strawberries in this as a test project. I've positioned them in a area by a shed and a wall so they should have a really warm little micro climate. I've made this frame movable at the moment as the area under it is going to be slabbed, but if it works I might fix it back to the shed and remove the rear support, making it much smaller.

The frame should be really easy to net and I have plans to use a solar pump to push water to the top of the frame and let it filter back down - hopefully this will work! 

I grew a big batch of alpines strawberries from seed last year and I'll post another picture when this is all planted up (I've got to make some stop ends for it as well yet). This could easily be used for salads as well.

What do you think? 

Anyone else grow vertically and have any success?

Tomatoes & Peppers Planted!

I'm later planting my tomatoes and peppers this year. Most year I sow far too early then they either sit there not growing or get too leggy. I decided to just try putting them in a bit later and see if it makes any difference or not.

In truth I would have planted them in the week when I had a bit of time on my own (when the boy naps), but I'd promised the girls they could help and they were so excited about planting two of their favourite veggies. 

So this afternoon we managed to get out there and sow them all, the girls filled the pots whilst I organised what we were going to plant. I love them planting a crop that we harvest over a long time like this, as they have a real sense of pride as the eat them.

Such concentration

My youngest daughter was determined to plant all the sweet peppers, as they're her favourite, where as my eldest was just as happy to plant the tomatoes. I know it won't be long before they're raiding the greenhouse and I'll have to be quick to get a descent amount before they eat them all! 

being careful with the seeds

In the end we've so far planted the following (although we could end up planting more yet as I never know what I'm going to come across or see for sale somewhere!):

Chilli pepper - long pencil cayenne (home saved seed)

Chilli pepper - Pimientos de Padron

Sweet pepper -   Poupila 

Sweet Pepper - Sweet Sunshine F1 (one of the few F1's I'm growing this year) 

Sweet Pepper - Lunch Box Mix

Tomato - Golden Sunrise (home saved seed)

Tomato - Millefleur

Tomato - Harbinger

Tomato - Best of all

Tomato - Jersey Sunrise

Tomato - Legend 

Tomato - Amish Paste

Tomato - Abraham Lincoln 

Tomatillo - Large purple/green  

Showing me how they'll grow!

I can't wait to try some of these in the summer! I'm really excited about trying the small sweet peppers I've picked out, some grow the size of a chilli so I should have no problems ripening them! Looking at the list I might plant a few more chilli pepper yet so I'll raid the seed box tomorrow to grow a few hot ones (although I have a fair few left int he freezer from last year). 

Everyone else got their tomatoes and peppers in yet?

How many varieties are you growing?

Shoe Rack In The Porch

I've never really finished the porch. I built it, and we just started using it. One day last year I did the floor (which I might do another post on as I'm quite pleased with it) and then I put up a few hooks and we just started using it like a normal room. 

Loves being like daddy!

Shoes are always a nightmare in this house and I wanted more storage for them. So many pairs of feet and each one has multiple pairs of shoes, boots and wellies! I also wanted a shelf for the eggs to go on instead of having them placed in the dinning room all the time. 

I let her screw in the screws. She was quite rapid! 

 So one afternoon my middle child and I set about putting up some shelves. I machined the wood the night before (she's too small to manage the planner unfortunately) so all we had to do was mark it all out and, drill the holes and screw it all together. The wood was some I had saved from being burnt on a big job about 10 years ago!

Finished shelves - I really wish this was all the shoes!

She loved it! She's very much a girl that needs to be kept busy and doesn't like doing nothing, so a job like this was ideal. she laughed the whole time I let her use the drill, switched the hoover on and off for me, passed me everything I needed, hammered in rawl plugs, she was a great little helper really.

Little girl proud of her work! 

She was so proud to show everyone when they got home and I'm pleased to have more shoes up off the floor and organised!

Any tips for storing hundreds of shoes?

More Planting Through Plastic

Down at the bottom of the garden, there's a surprise waiting for you. 

It's called weeds! 

Not quite ground force but we can get a lot done between us! 

The veg garden is looking pretty good at the moment but where the 16 beds ends it turns, rather abruptly, into a jungle of weeds. It's not something I'm proud of and it's certainly on my list of things to do! 

On Sunday the girls and I decided to tackle a very small part of it. We dug out a strip for a new bed. Pulling out all the nettle and reed roots that had taken hold and made a big pile of them. This took some time, and for the girls a complete change of clothes - well it was rather muddy! Fair play to them though they stayed for ages and worked hard, we frequently had to stop and look at worms and bugs, but I didn't mind that!  

Singing was optional! 

I've decided to make these beds narrow than my others. The main garden has beds divided into 4ft strips, the idea being that you can reach the middle from both sides. The trouble with this is you find yourself stretching all the time. Narrowing the bed down to about 30" means I can reach to the other side crouched on one side of the path. 

 I laid the slabs on the bare earth so I now had a new 10ft by 30" bed marked out, with hopefully most of the perennial weeds removed. I then added a couple wheel barrow loads of well rotted sheep muck and mixed it in before covering the whole thing with weed membrane.

A few nights later ( a dry few minutes) I got the blow torch out again (like I did here) and burnt in holes for plant to be planted. 

It's a bit of a mixed bed with some plants I'm experimenting with. 

In it is some Vietnamese  coriander, (which I bough again at Hellens Festival at the weekend as my other didn't make it through winter or go to seed last year), some quillqina (a mexican herb I'm trying to grow), some Peruvian Black mint (another herb I'm experimenting with), a giant Achocha (just to see how it does out of the greenhouse - this will need some support though!) and four chilli pepper plants (just to see how they perform outside as well. 

Hopefully planting them in this way will give me some low effort herbs and flavourings, whilst keeping the weeds at bay and reclaiming some more of the veg garden. 

I've started on another bed below this one last night in which I intend to plant my chickpeas in much the same way. I then think the area below that I will just cover over to suppress the weeds for a few months then sow a green manure for over the winter. 

Anyone else growing though plastic? Anyone else have much luck with growing things that are traditionally greenhouse crops outside in a UK type climate, like chilli's?