SUNSHINE, CROCUSES, and TRANSPLANTING STRAWBERRIES

What a gloriously sunny day we are having today on the Pennine Mountains of West Yorkshire.  While it was a cold start, things heated up by early this afternoon and I was able to sit on my hammock/swing and read for a while.  There isn't much by the way of colour in my garden right now although the primroses and crocuses are doing a great job of cheering up the garden.  I've grown the crocuses in a square container which I covered over with mesh during winter to keep the squirrels at bay.  Squirrels like eating crocus corms very much and will dig them up. 

Crocuses growing in a tub

Crocus stamens

Crocus stamens - macro

I forgot to mention that the Irises are out too and giving dashes of blue in a small border as well as in two pots at the front of the house.  They are really lovely.

Unfortunately, sunshine, birds, an ever-present prowling Ragdoll cat, and jobs that need doing, are always a distraction when I want to be lazy.  So I didn't get much reading done.  I did, however, muster up the energy to remove the perennial strawberries, which are now producing bright green leaves, from the free-standing trough.  I discarded the old compost, relined the trough with black garbage bags, put in fresh compost, and replanted the strawberry plants after removing a fair amount of old compost from their roots.  This year, when the plants throw out new runners, I will allow the runners to root in small pots of compost so that next year I have fresh young plants.



Strawberries tend to get diseased if you allow the plants to grow year after year in the same soil.  I try to change my plants every two or three years by taking new plants from the runners.  New plants should not be planted in soil that have already been planted with strawberries as the soil will, as likely as not, harbour viruses.