watering strawberries

[shaolin101]

Should get mine soon and am just planning on keeping them alive til next year.

The strawberry planter i have does not have a watering system allowing it to reach all the 'windows' the plants stick out from.

How should i do it? i was planning on having one planted int he top as well - should i just drench it from the top and hope enough gets to the bottom? Or go to each window and try to water them sideways?

[shaolin101]

[Mrs Ava]

Do you mean one of those terracota planters with little holes in where you poke the plants?  I have one with alpine strawbs in and to be honest, it is terrible!  Looks great, but wow does it dry out quickly!!  I have plants in every station and one in the top and I water from the top.  There must be a way of using them better.  One of you lot must use one successfully?  What should Shaolin do and what am I doing wrong?!?!?!?

[return of the mac]

Oh i saw a great way on beechgrove. When planting put an old bit of pipe down the middle, plant and backfill the compost around it, then fill the pipe with gravel. Water through this and the moisture will get right down to the bottom of the planter

[Merry Tiller]

That's an old Geoff Hamilton trick, doesn't work that well though, the water soaks down to the bottom alright but because of all the gravel it drains away very quickly

[Phil]

Surely the way to stop the water draining out of the bottom, is to have a loop of pipe that starts at the top of the strawberry planter, goes to the bottom, and then comes back up to the surface again, and to have small holes in the pipe so you control where the water comes out of the pipe?  See what I mean?

[shaolin101]

EJ, That is the one i have.

Was thinking i might just try poking holes down the top with a cane to let the water get in.

[Rosa_Mundi]

I had one of these, and the only way I could make it work looked awful, so I got rid. For what it's worth, I used an old pop bottle with a few small holes pierced through the bottom. This was them bedded firmly into the top of the compost (must be firm, or all the water drains out very quickly) and filled with water, which drains out slowly and so has a chance to seep through the soil. Not exactly pretty, though...

[aquilegia]

what I heard is you cut the bottom off a 2l bottle, pierce holes in it and plant it upside down in the pot, then fill it with pebbles/gravel.

TO be honest, I didn't bother. Mine seems to work ok-ish. I water it in the top, let it soak in, then water again a few more times. The plants aren't nearly as big as the ones in pots.

Mum's didn't survive the winter, so she's replacing the strawbs with herbs - might work better (especially with mediterranean herbs) as they love it hot and dry-ish.