by Georg Huber
Guilty: Killed a Strawberry?
2:15 pm in Getting Started, How-Tos, Plants, questions, Seeking Advice by Georg Huber
Hi together,
yesterday I bought a small strawberry plant. I shook off all soil and put it into a cup, filled with expanded clay.
First the plant looked very well, especially this morning. During the day it went worse. Now the plant looks as below:
Does anyone know what I did wrong? I am thinking about too much water, maybe wrong ph-level (I didn’t check the actual level)?
Please help me from being guilty killing a strawberry plant.
Regards,
Georg
Could be too much water as strawberries do not like to be wet, but It could just be the shock of being transplanted. I am no expert, but can just share my experience with them. I transplanted a couple into a WF a few years ago from my backyard. I rinsed the dirt and put them in rockwool. They were small crowns at them time if you look here. http://our.windowfarms.org/2010/03/18/transplanted-strawberries/ I really can’t remember, but I have a few picture of them on my computer with no leaves at all so I bet the original leaves died and I cut them off. However, the crowns were healthy and within say 10-20 days, new leaves were growing from the crowns.
I would not give up yet on them. I would cut off all the outer leaves that look like they are dying. For a strawberry all the new growth come from the center of the crown and the outer leaves continuously die off. It’s a continuous cycle. This will let the roots get better established. I would not call you killer yet.
By the way, I set my ph levels at 6.0. Good luck!
Hi Georg,
two weeks ago I buy three strawberry in soil. In german we called this monthly strawberries. The whole summer we should have some fruits (maybe). Then I washed the soil carefully out. One plant get a little click. (Grrrrrhhhh) Not the problem – I remove the dead leafs and the plant makes new leafs.
Strawberries are rugged (most of them are frost compact (?) )
Kindly regards
JKDF
Hi Tony,
I didn’t recognize, however you are right. The bad leaves were all at the outside of the plant. I gave them a cut and now some time to relax. If I see it right, a blossom is coming up – maybe it’s all good.
Hi JKDF,
I bought the plant at “hela” (german hardware store). Maybe there is also some frost the plant is coping with.
Regards,
georg
Hi George, My experience with transplanting (in soil pots or in my aquaponic system) has been that all roots loose some of their root hairs and even large parts of their drawing ability. I always trim back some of the upper plants to make a balance between the roots and tops. Hope you have fun with your system like I do. I killed one of my strawberry plants too. When a felow windowfarmer told me strawberries did not like to be planted too deep I thought OOPS they were right. – I did plant them deep. Now – my tomatoes like to go deep. Happy Windowfarming, Sylvia
Hey Sylvia,
thanks for sharing. I checked on the depth of planting. But what you tell about the roots sounds quite logic to me. Hope, you are right
Regards
georg
This is Britta. Just wanted to chime in and say that these guys are all tossing out fantastic advice. Trimming is the best cure for transplant shock. Also, statistically I have found that about 10-20% of transplants don’t make it the first week. But generally I’ve had better luck with strawberry transplants. Also, the older the transplant the hard it is on the plant. Leaving plants in the dark for 48 hours can help as well as plants grow their roots at night. Don’t overwater strawberries. Try waiting as long as possible until they seem droopy and then hit them with some water this wAy you can start to learn the optimal watering timer setting for your system. Best of luck! -b
Hey,
I think I have to admit, that I overreacted a litte. Here is a picture of the plant this morning:
(so happy to see *g* – the third image I added in the original post)
That does not look that bad anymore, but remember strawberries will need to be pollinated by hand
What?! How to do that?
Without bees or wind, chances are that the strawberry flower won’t get pollinated completely. Worst case nothing will happen or it may get partial pollinated by itself and you get a deformed berry like this. http://our.windowfarms.org/2012/04/15/strawberry-at-over-two-years/
I have been using a Q-tip to pollinate them and I have heard others using small paint brushes. Gently wipe the Q-tip on the stamen which are the yellow things sticking out around the center and wipe it all over the stigma which are all the things in the middle. It might not seem like you are moving stuff around, but you are. Do this one or twice a day until the petals fall off. The petals will fall off when they are pollinated. Move the pollin between flowers if more than one is flowering.
Thanks for helping – I will give it a try…
Second Flower opened up this morning.
Two more flowers opened up. The strawberry feels pretty well I think