Kitchen Garden Forum

hi all, as its our first year of growing our own,we planted some
strawberry plants afew weeks ago,they have only been outside now for 3days and some of the leaves on the plants have got brown spots on with like a white spot any ideas what this is and can it be treated. looks like
i am going to be on this forum alot
ash

Hi Ash, well it sounds like leaf spot, good hygiene in clearing up dead leaves in autumn leaving just the clean leaved crowns helps to prevent this - the spores lay in the soil to infect next year. Best to get disease free certificated plants. This is more prevalent in wet humid climate. Plants have more resistence if grown in a humus rich soil, and given adequate space and not overcrowded, I like to put organic slug pellets down as the fruits start to form then mulch with straw to keep the fruit clean and dry off the ground. Hope this is helpful - lets hope we get some sunshine to ripen them - been pretty wet so far!

ooppss sorry nature"s babe should have said they are
in those planter bags with the pockets in
ash

Hello Ashb
This may be part of the problem. Despite what some gardening 'experts' say, particularly sellers of these bags, I don't think that strawberries do very well for the amateur when grown in containers of any sort. The plants like to have a good cool root run and a supply of moisture all the time. Commercially this method works well because watering/feeding systems are used with the bags to give the best results but for us lesser mortals with watering cans it's not nearly so easy to get a good crop of fruit.
If you have room I would carefully remove your plants and set them out in open ground and straw them up, when the flowers have set, in the traditional way. You could use your bags for things like 'cut and come again' lettuce.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

John

Hi John, thanks for the reply, havent got alot
of space thats why we got these bags, but
after reading your reply i will make some space
and get them planted outside.
thanks ash.