Alpine Strawberries - Growing Seedlings

The winter this year in Boston was not as brutal as the one we had the previous year, but in fear that my alpine strawberries would not return - I started a new batch from scratch.

Garden Update 3.15.15

Carnation Seedlings

A quick update on the seeds that I have already started. The green chives are doing well and developing lots of roots causing the bulb to be pushed out of the soil. The carnation (Botanical Interests Chaubad Blend planted  2.28.15) are showing their baby leaves. The alpine stawberries (Renee's Garden) are about the size of a fingernail and new seedlings keep popping up. The tuberous begonia is sprouting once again  (third year now).

Patio Update 6.23.13

Alpine Strawberries

Peas

Little baby pea-pod

Raspberries

Alpine Strawberry Progress

The alpine strawberries germinated in about 7 days when i kept them at a room temperature of approximately 85 degrees. This was fairly luck as these seeds can take as much as 6 weeks to germinate. After I saw a few of the plants starting to germinate, I put the plants under lights to help the process. Next step - true leaves: These should appear in about a month of so.

Alpine Strawberry Plants 4/30/13

Alpine Strawberry Plants 4/30/13

Tomato Plants 4/30/13

Whats Growing 4/20/13

Jalapeno & Poblano Peppers 4.18.13

Marigolds 4.18.13

Lots has happened since my last post. I planted the begonias and am waiting for them to root. I bought some orange calla lilies and put them in a warm corner. The tomato plants are growing fast with super fast germination for both the orange cherries and yellow pear varieties. These plants are about 2 inches tall now and under lights. The marigolds have developed about 4 true-leaves each and I hope to plant these either tomorrow or next weekend. The jalapeno peppers are progressing quite well. I planted some Thai basil. Also, I got my package of alpine strawberry seeds and Kale seeds today and will be planting those soon.

On a different note, a friend at the garden gave me a rose bush and Japanese lace leaf maple tree cutting. I have placed these in soil (with rooting hormone) and am hoping these end up rooting. Time will tell!!

Tomato Plants 4.18.13

Begonia bulb  "tuber" 4.13.13

Flame Calla Lillie Bulb  4.13.13

End to the Season

We have not been going to the garden as regular as before and I apologize for not posting as much.  The lot has been run-over by weeds and is really a mess. My alpine strawberries have continued to fruit and flower. The raspberries taste divine. The second batch of carrots it just about ready and today we planted tulips for the spring. Below are some pictures I have been holding on to.

Daffodil Bulbs Planted 10/6/12

Tulip Bulbs Planted 10/6/12

Carrots almost ready for harvest - 9/16/12

Yellow Pear Tomatoes - 9/16/12

Candy Stripe Cosmos - Still blooming

The lot 9/16/12 Overgrown by weeds

Alpine strawberries harvest

We have had a lot of alpine strawberries this year. Last years bushes that we started have been giving about a handful of a week. However I noticed that the taste of the early summer berry is was much more poignant  then the late summer ones.

Garden Update 6/10/12

It was too hot to work in the garden this weekend, but I did go by to see how things are progressing. The biggest surprise was that one of the tomato plants (only 5 inches tall itself) had a tomato hanging from it. I planted more peas and carrots to replace those eaten by the rabbits, had a small carrot harvest, and found the very first alpine strawberry berry.

Bush Bean Plant Flower

Small Carrot Harvest

Growing Romaine Lettuce

Strawberry Plants with Green Berries

What's Growing 3/25/12

 

Cosmo Seedlings (front) Peony Poppy Seedlings (back)

Like many other places in New England, this was a highly unsually warm week in Boston and many of my plants made good strides as a result of the good weather. I replanted the cosmos into cool-whip containers and they grew their first set of true leaves. Seedlings emerged for many of the plants in my in-door and out-door herb gardens. Particularly exciting was that the Botanical Interests Baby Little Finger Carrot seedlings peeped out of the ground, as this is the first year that I am growing carrots. The baby oranges on the orange tree grew bigger. The orange tree is now consuming about .75 cups of water a day!





Alpine Strawberries (front) Little Finger Carrots - 25 days (back)



The germination rate of my tomatos this year was verry disappointing so I sewed more seeds. Only 3 of 15 Black Krim tomatos germinated and only 5 of 15 Black Trifele tomato seeds germinated. None of the Coyote tomato seeds germinated. I recall that I had much better results last year. Thus, I got some more seeds from my friend to hopefully will get more seedlings. The types of tomatos that might come from the seeds my friend  gave me are a bit of a mystery as they are listed as "good tomato" and "holland tomato."  I also started some of the sugar sweetie tomatos from last year.

Seedlings & Cleaning up

The weather was fantastic today and I used it as an opportunity to get out onto the balcony and clean up the mess from last year. I pulled and threw out all of the old tomato plants. I cut away all of the dead alpine strawberry plants to allow the new plants to get bigger. I was pleasantly surprised that so much growth on these plants has taken place. The raspberry bush desperately needed to be cut and I could feel how flimsy the old dried branches were as I cut them off. The blueberry bush has little buds already that will turn into leaves eventually.

Indoors, both the peony's and cosmos are well under way. The romaine lettuce seedlings have sprung up and so have some of the herb seedlings. At yesterday's flower & garden show I bought a bonsai orange tree and noted today that the tree has some time oranges already.

Cosmo, Peony, and Romaine Seedlings

Alpine Strawberries

Blueberry Bush

Bonsai Orange Tree

Jack Frost's (Hopefully) Last Hurrah

I should not be surprised to see snow in Boston this late in February. I guess spring is not as close as I originally thought. Anyhow, boy was I excited to have my new "portable" green house to cover up my carrots, flowers, and alpine strawberries. No - I'm not expecting strawberries any time soon; however, a number of alpine strawberry plants managed to stay green through this past winter.

If you find yourself needing a portable green house check out Christmas Tree Shop for this little light weight beauty. Only $30 or so!

An Interloper amoung the Berries

In anticipation of today's thunderstorm I went outside to pick the alpine strawberries. I noticed that they are a bit bigger in size than the one's from Monday's harvest. I also noticed that in the middle of my bushes there was a mushroom! This is most unexpected. I am particularly surprised because I am gardening in a container on the second floor of a building. Where could it have come from?

Mushroom in the Strawberry patch



Aug 29 - 15 berry harvest



Garden Update 7/9/11

Botanical Interests
Sugar Sweetie Flower

My little garden seems to be making progress overall.  The first flowers have appeared on the botanical interests Sugar Sweetie tomato plants. The Renee's Garden superbush plant has grown significantly but has not had any open flowers.  My blueberry bush has a few green blueberries. The raspberry bush has grown and become more green, but no fruit thus far.



Alpine Strawberries - first
Renee's Garden

 Alpine strawberries - I can now see many tiny little berries (still green) developing from the little white flowers. The planter from last year has also sprouted its first flowers.

Two weeks ago I planted some Zinnia Cut and Come Again flowers by Botanical Interests and these are growing at a surprisingly fast pace.



First Blueberries (very few)

 Today I also planted some Romaine Lettuce. I ordered the seeds from Amazon and while it was supposed to be by Botanical Interests, the package said Todd's Seeds. I thought this was odd and planted the seeds regardless.

Garden Update

Left - last year's alpine plant Right -Renee's
Garden Alpine Plant

I think this weather must be confusing my garden as temparatures have varied from 60 degrees to as high as 85 degrees. Naturally, since we live at the ocean, the temperatures are lower here than in the city (Boston). Nonetheless, my cucumbers are doing okay. I spotted 2 baby cucumbers already. Using popsicle sticks, I created a verticle climb for them to keep them from the ground.

First Baby Cucumber

The alpine strawberries that I started from seed have grown and produced many quaint little flowers at this point - but no fruit! The alpine strawberries from last year (which wintered on my balcony) have caught up to the ones I have been growing indoors.

Day 44

Alpine Strawberries Day 44

My life at work has been hectic these past couple weeks and as a result my garden (and blog) have suffered. I admit that there were days that I did not water my seedlings when I should have. I also discovered that my herb box garden flew right off of my balcony with this crazy wind we have been having. Now, I am back at it! My Alpine strawberries have made significant progress since my last post and are probably twice the height. I fed them fertilizer for acid loving plants (MiracleGro) which is commonly used for azalea's and they have been thriving since.


Cucumber roots along stem


I have found that my cucumber have white dots along their stems. I surmise that my cucumbers are trying to grow roots along their stem. Has anyone seen this before?

The blueberry tree that I bought as a bare bone twig has since developed lots of leaves and I am seeing the begging of flowers and later fruit. I am getting very excited for warm days and summer. Hopefully it will be here in no time!!

Moving Day

Alpine Strawberries Day 37

Today marks the day that ALL of my seedlings have been moved from 1" x 1" egg crates to 4" x 4" slightly bigger homes. I watered the soil well and used a fork to lift up and move the plant. Moving the alpine strawberries was particularly tricky as the soil kept breaking apart. I was very disappointed at by the root system that these strawberries had, which was quite weak. These seedlings are 37 days old and I would have thought the plants would be much stronger by now. Nonetheless, everyone seems to have made it through the move.

Sweetie Romaine

One of the more impressive vegetables has been the Renee's Garden Sweetie Romaine lettuce. The germination rate was high and fast. Unfortunantley quite a few of the seedlings outgrew their egg crate home a bit too fast and perished before I had the chance to replant. This plant is kind of funny as the stem cannot support the leaves too well. To prevent the leaves from falling to the ground, I created a little "popsicle stick fence" to keep the leaves upright. I've looked into this problem online and have not heard of anyone else seeing this.

Growing Up

  

Cucumber Roots

Post-Transplant

All of my plants seem to be making progress. I spent today moving plants into large containers. The blueberry and raspberry plants were moved from 1 gallon containers to 7 gallon containers. The grape plant was finally planted in a 1 gallon container (for now). I moved many of the cucumber and tomato plants from their tiny 1 square inch egg carton cubby into more roomy 4 inch pots. I was very pleasentley surprised to see the complex root systems that my cucumbers had already set up. My sweet romaine seems to be growing but looks quite odd.

I will be needing to transplant my strawberry seedlings within the next couple of days, but I am glad to see that true leaves (although tiny) have developed. While outdoors today, I cleaned up the dried up remains from last last years harvest. I pulled the tomato plants out by the root and will plant tomatos in the same pots this year. I've read that tomatos do like to be planted in the same spot year after year. I cut back the dried up grass-like foliage from last year's alpine strawberry plant and found that new strawberry seedlings were growing in there. It is kind of incredible that the new seedlings are growing outside in the cold weather when my Renee's Garden Alpine Strawberries have been so fussy.

Alpine Strawberries

I also decided to dable with flowers a bit. I bough some bleeding heart bare root in the store. Though, I am not sure if I planted these correctley. Keeping my fingers crossed for now.

Alpine Strawberries Growing at Last!!



Alpine Strawberry Seedlings

 I was thrilled to find that after a month of germination the Renee's Garden Alpine strawberries began to show some green. I can now see tiny green plants the size of pins. This is very encouraging and leaves me questioning whether the berries growth is simply slowed due to our cold weather in Boston. Regardless, I am still a long way from this plant bearing fruit.

Plastic Bag Greenhouse

My Botanical Interests Marketmore cucumbers have been doing well. I've been steadily transplating them from the germination tray into 4 inch pots. I found that the 4 inch pots dried up verry quickly so I've been putting a plastic bag over the small pots to keep moisture & heat in.

The Seeds

Last year I had the fortune of buying a wild strawberry plant at Christmas Tree Shop plant store in late July and to my surprise this little plant produced super sweet 1/2 inch berries through all of August and September. The taste of wild strawberries really is unlike any other berry. The best way to describe it is a cross between a very sweet strawberry and raspberry.

This year I have decided to try growing this delicious fruit from seed. I purchased Alpine Mignonette Heirloom seeds from Renee's Garden on Amazon. I've read that these berries take some time to germinate so I planted them in seed starter (composed of 40% Composted Bark and 60% Peat Moss by Miracle Gro) well in early March (about a week ago). I am hoping that these guys pop up and I can transplant them into larger pots in late April. However, there is about a 50% chance of a frost after April 7th.