Re: gardening revival/food gardening

**"* S* <m*@gmail.com>**

Hi,

I've had good luck with containerized strawberries, both in pots and in
hanging baskets. In pots, try the cultivars usually recommended for annual
production: Chandler, Sweet Charlie, and Camarosa. Plant them in the fall,
keep them in a cool environment over winter, and snip off the runners. They
will bloom in very early spring--you should have berries a month earlier
than you do outside. In hanging baskets, try some day neutrals. I have let
them keep two runners and let those runners droop. The mother plants fruit
earliest and then the runners do--the yields aren't up to commercial
standards but the plants are pretty enough to earn some points on that
alone.

Miranda

On Jan 6, 2008 12:52 PM, MARY FRAN MCQUADE <mfmcq@sympatico.ca> wrote:

> Hi gang--
>
> Interesting that you're talking about gardening and food gardening, since
> that's been on my mind recently. (Can't do much else but think about it,
> since my garden looks like an ice skating rink right now, with a layer of
> packed snow between two layers of icy glaze.)
>
> The back story: I was watching a Food Channel show about Jamie Oliver's
> gorgeous home food garden and country kitchen and what he cooks there.
> (Quick note to the uninitiated: JO is "the naked chef," an English chef
> who
> advocates unpretentious, fresh cooking -- which is why some bright
> marketing
> type came up w/ the "naked" description. Don't ask me -- doesn't make any
> real sense to me, either.)
>
> On to the gardening part: In one of the shows, Jamie and his gardener
> (busy
> guy, he doesn't do all the rough stuff himself) were talking about growing
> strawberries in hanging baskets. I'd love to do this, since my only sun is
> in a crammed-full city front garden and my big front porch. I've succeeded
> with sweet peppers and 'Cupid' grape tomatoes in containers on my porch,
> as
> well as the typical herbs. But I'd like to try strawberries.
>
> Anyone have any experience/advice re growing strawberries in hanging
> baskets? I'm interested in the "hanging" idea, rather than a strawberry
> barrel or strawberry pot. Any suggestions re varieties, care, etc., would
> be
> greatly appreciated.
>
> BTW, Doreen, I grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast, tho I'm now perched on a
> hill a few blocks from Lake Ontario, and James Lee Burke's writing about
> "the salt" brings my youth right back to me. I get downright nostalgic for
> Spanish moss and live oaks.
>
> Mary Fran McQuade
> writing from the sloppy city streets of Toronto, now experiencing a messy
> January thaw
>
>
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