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​The Fisherman's Garden
GARDEN REPORT
BUCKET GARDENING AND STRAWBERRY BARREL
Strawberry Barrel
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The strawberry barrel is amazing- the progress has been dramatic as these pictures show! We started with 36 plants and now there are at least twice that many. The plants have sent out so many runners that we had to build a small bed underneath to catch them. They are still spreading so it is hard to say just how many we will have next spring- I can't wait!!!
As you can see in the first photo, 2" holes are drilled staggered 8" apart starting 8" from the bottom.
There are fifteen- 5/16" small holes in the bottom of the barrel for drainage- add 6" of gravel on the bottom and start inserting root-stalk seedlings from the bottom with soil to lock them in place, working your way up one layer at a time. Add few plants at the top.
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A few tricks-
1) Two empty 5 gal buckets with lids stacked in the middle to save weight and soil- strawberries have shallow roots.
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2) We inserted 2" PVC pipe vertically between rows of plants, capped on the bottom, drilled 1/8" holes on each side every 2", filled them with sand and inserted a 1 gallon per hour dripper into the top of each tube. The tops of the watering tubes and the feed lines for the drippers can be seen in the first photo.
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3) Strawberries love acidic soil, and we can add a very small amount of aluminum sulfate (azalea food) to lower the PH of the soil to 5.5-6.0 into the top of the PVC pipe.​
​Bucket Garden
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The bucket garden is doing very well. We are growing lemon squash (summer squash shaped like a lemon) at one end and zucchini at the other end. We had a severe thunderstorm with nickel sized hail a couple of weeks ago which laid the plants over, but didn't kill them. Since then the zucchini has struggled a bit but the lemon squash has started to really produce- Go Figure!
We also have anaheim, big jim bell, and another unidentified pepper that are really producing. Two kinds of tomatoes, one a tiny grape tomato, and small 2-3" salad tomatoes that are full and about to come ripe. There is a cantaloupe that has several fruits on it one of which is about to ripen- they are about the size of a softball.
Last to go into the bucket garden when one plant failed is a butternut squash that has developed a few, rapidly growing winter squash.