A week or so ago we picked up 2 new strawberry pots form the nursery. While the strawberries in our containers have been doing well, those in the ground were languishing. We figured it was best to get the remaining plants into containers and retrofit the bed to make it a little better for whatever might be planted there later.
I would have liked to place a watering pipe down the center of these pots but didn’t have anything on hand. This helps to distribute the water better throughout the pot, but as sometimes happens, you don’t always have the proper supplies on hand when you need them..
For this pot, I transplanted all the existing in-ground strawberry plants first and then filled in the remainder of the growing ports with runners from our existing container garden. These runners only had a few roots, so I am not sure if they will take or not, but it was a way of making the best use of both the runners and the pot space.
Keeping all of our containers watered is a bit fo challenge here in Southern California. Even today we are experiencing an Autumn Santa Ana Wind which has raised the temperature to almost 100 degrees. These temperatures and the strong winds can quickly dry out any container, so we have had to water every day or risk losing both these new plantings and older ones.
As of today, there are a few healthy looking strawberry plants in the pots along with a few that probably won’t make it. These are most likely the poorly rooted runners mentioned above. I’ll cultivate any new runners from the existing containers, root them in separate pots and then move them here to fill in any holes.