Thursday, March 15, 2007
Last night I opened my box from the garden mail order firm. I was a little bit horrified because 1) the strawberries looked dead except for some little green shoots in their crowns and 2) the instructions on what to do with them until you plant them outside were not adapted to someone living in a flat. They went like "dig a hole in the corner of your garden and lay the plants at a 45deg angle covering the roots lightly with soil". OK that was out. So in some desperation I just shoved them into toilet roll holders and filled them with potting mix and then gave them a good watering. I hope this will stop them dying the death before Saturday. The raspberries and gooseberries were in plastic bags with their roots naked so I opened the bags, filled the bottom with potting mix, again a good water and put a rubber band around the filled bit.
The planting instructions were quite specific, but not very familiar to me. Firstly you soak the roots in water for a certain time, then it says to dig a hole, put in some potting mix or compost and fill it with water to make a kind of mud. You dip the roots into this, then you plant them in a hole that you have already prepared with some nice fertile stuff at the bottom of the hole. I will try this technique and see what happens. I am a bit worried as the plants seem to be completely lifeless but they assure me they are in "vegetal dormancy" and will wake up once they are out in the air and sun.
Saturday is going to be so busy: I need to build the composter and set it up, plant these fruits, plant my spuds which are looking like aliens, plant my parsnips, some carrots , beets and spinach. Oh, and rip out another 20 kgs of weeds. By hand. Phew.
He Who Must Moan is making acid comments about the tomato and lettuce seedlings cluttering up the kitchen windowsill, the fruit bushes in the pantry, the plastic bottles waiting to go to the garden and the cardboard boxes all over the place.
Lots of plastic things looking like this...
I also think that he went to get a jar of jam in the pantry and dropped my seed packets all over the place because there was a bit of yelling and something about "bloody seeds". I told him that he will stop moaning once he's eating the raspberries but I concede that it is rather a weak argument in the absence of material proof...
The planting instructions were quite specific, but not very familiar to me. Firstly you soak the roots in water for a certain time, then it says to dig a hole, put in some potting mix or compost and fill it with water to make a kind of mud. You dip the roots into this, then you plant them in a hole that you have already prepared with some nice fertile stuff at the bottom of the hole. I will try this technique and see what happens. I am a bit worried as the plants seem to be completely lifeless but they assure me they are in "vegetal dormancy" and will wake up once they are out in the air and sun.
Saturday is going to be so busy: I need to build the composter and set it up, plant these fruits, plant my spuds which are looking like aliens, plant my parsnips, some carrots , beets and spinach. Oh, and rip out another 20 kgs of weeds. By hand. Phew.
He Who Must Moan is making acid comments about the tomato and lettuce seedlings cluttering up the kitchen windowsill, the fruit bushes in the pantry, the plastic bottles waiting to go to the garden and the cardboard boxes all over the place.
Lots of plastic things looking like this...I also think that he went to get a jar of jam in the pantry and dropped my seed packets all over the place because there was a bit of yelling and something about "bloody seeds". I told him that he will stop moaning once he's eating the raspberries but I concede that it is rather a weak argument in the absence of material proof...
Labels: fruit, planting, seeds, spring, strawberry
# posted by antipodesgirl @ 9:52 AM 
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