March in review

March.

we plant out the tunnel crop which we pick in June plus we are tucking, weeding, de-leafing our glasshouse plants

We plant out the tunnel crop which we pick in June plus we are tucking, weeding, de-leafing our glasshouse plants.

We have two growing systems for our strawberries; inside the glasshouse which crops from April to July and October to December and we have tunnel crops which are our traditional summer berries. 

These tunnel crops are also on tabletops and we grow Murano and Favori as well as trialling new varieties from our breeding partners.

In March we plant out the crop; we are preparing the plants, prepping the growing bags of coir and making sure that the tunnels’ structures are ready to take the weight of the plants.  Tunnel maintenance is done after the winter season; in years when we’ve had a lot of snow we need to make sure our tunnels are ready for the planting.  We set up all the irrigation and growing system before planting out.

Meanwhile back in the glasshouse we are preparing the Elsanta (a very traditional strawberry variety for UK growers) and Malling Centenary (a new variety from the East Malling Strawberry Breeding Programme) plants, making sure they are in prime growing conditions to start picking next month.  We are removing leaves, tucking leaves under string so that the berries themselves have the most amount of space and light, ready for further growth before picking and we are making sure that the packhouse is ready for when we start picking the fruit.