This weekend so far has been spent digging out the weeds which have appeared everywhere. During the week we had a lot of rain, the heavens totally opened and for almost 12 hours did nothing but rain. Now my allotment looks very happy and healthy, albeit there are now weeds, weeds, weeds...
Thankfully though my strawberries are looking fantastic and ive finally been able to try my very first home grown strawberry and as you can see it looks brilliant and tasted even better.
So here is my netting and here is the strawberry that I ate... the only thing I am unsure of is the trails which run off the strawberries, do I cull them back or do I let them grow? So far they are all under the netting and not yet gripping anything else.
And finally the other things that I weeded around was the sweetcorn. This is the biggest prop that we have so far and it was grown in a propagator and then transferred to the allotment where it seems to be flourishing. To date we have planted 40 props, so I am hoping they all turn out really well this year.
And the weed problem, I am assuming everyone gets them and has them.... but these specific weeds drive me insane...
Ive spent hours this afternoon digging them both out from in and around plants and generally just everywhere!
If I'm not mistaken, the first weed is mares tail and if so you're never going to get rid of it I'm afraid. You have to learn to live with it and keep cutting it down young, otherwise it will drive you mad!
ReplyDeleteThe long stalks off the strawberries are runners which you can use to increase the number of plants you have. However your strawberries will be better if you cut them off, so you have to come to some sort of compromise with them ;>)
I have a friend who grows strawberries and she just lets them run. Says she only needs to replant when the original plants get too old.
ReplyDeleteSo I would say keep them, and as they get established, you can clip the runner.
Wonderful looking garden. :)
We have property that we are always fighting weeds on, too. Annoying!
I'm using the runners off my strawberry plants to build up my numbers this year (started with 6 plants last year, took runners off them and now we've got about 18) but I know it's supposed to take a toll on new plants and someone told me to not let plants fruit or produce runners in their first year to let it get established...
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think they're pretty hardy and you'll be fine doing whatever you want really. Havnig said that if you specifically don't want to produce any more plants from them then cut the runners off as it's just a waste of the plants energy... :)
Welcome to blogging. Is that horsetail weed (mares tail)? Its a bugger of a weed. Looks like some level of digging has been going on! All the best, kelli.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to blogland! I seem to have resolved this pesky sign on problem with blogger by downloading google chrome (whatever that is!) anyway, I've asked some of my bloggers to come on over and say hello to get you started!
ReplyDeleteAwesome blog! :)
ReplyDelete