First time grower needing some help please!

[LemonFrosting]

Hello!

I've come home from b&q with two tomato plants and a strawberry plant. Please help as I'm unsure what to do with them and if they need to go inside or outside? I have some compost to replant them, but do they go in a bag or a pot? Also how often do I need to feed them?
Trying to encourage son to eat more fruit and veg so thought maybe growing our own would help!
Thanks all!

It's too early for tomatoes to go outside. It needs to be 10 degrees pretty much round the clock.

What to do with them in the meantime depends on how big they are now. Can you post a picture?

If they are 5-10 cm tall and have a few pairs of leaves, and/or they have roots showing at the bottom of the pot, you should pot them up in a pot a bit bigger (and a lot deeper) than the pot they're in now. Get a bag of multipurpose compost to use for this. Knock the current pot firmly on the base and/or squeeze it gently. Then hold the plant by a leaf and lift the pot off the whole thing. Put the plant into the new pot so that it's sitting on the bottom. Surround with fresh compost, taking off any leaves that would be under the compost but leaving at least one pair. Water gently and put on a warm sunny windowsill or in a light porch. The plant will grow extra roots from the submerged stem which will make it much stronger.

If the weather takes ages to warm up you can do this two or three times. Mine are currently in their 3rd pots.

Ultimately you will need a pot the size of a supermarket flower bucket for each plant. Or you could use grow bags, though these are harder to manage.

I don't know so much about strawberries but I think they'll be fine outside, mine are looking good. I have a few inside as well which are way ahead of the ones outside. If you have only one plant I'd be inclined to keep it inside, you don't want to find out later that the dreaded slugs/birds have eaten your carefully tended strawberries while your back was turned. Or you could try a window box, this is perfect size for strawberries, keeps them out of the way of slugs, and birds tend not to come so close to the house.

Shop bought compost will have enough nutrients for four or five weeks at least so you don't need to worry about feeding anything yet.

Good luck, you may get the gardening bug!

Here is a picture of them, only small.....for now!

Oh, that didn't work, try again!

Here are the strawberries

I've got two of these rectangular pots, would the strawberries be OK in these do you think?

Oh gosh I have messed up!!!

I bought some ferns today too which I have planted in large pots outside. After having a Google, I can see that the Boston Ferns I have bought are for indoor growing only 🤦‍♀️

We all learn by our mistakes. That's gardening! I didn't give my tomato plants enough light this year and they are still so titchy I've had to buy plants.

Your strawberry plants look great. They will be happy in that planter and can live outside. Keep them away from slugs and birds once the fruits start to grow, or they'll get eaten before you would think them ripe.

The great news about strawberry plants is that after they fruit, strawberry plants send out runners. Nip off all but one from each plant and you will have four plants next year. The original plants will fruit well for about three years, growing more strawberries each year.

Keep the tomato plant on a sunny windowsill. Do some research on the type you have bought - some are bushy and some grow in cordons, so can be trained up a cane. Once they get going, tomato plants grow fast. Some liquid tomato feed (follow the instructions on the bottle) will help you here.

Good luck!

Thank you both so much for your help,advice and guidance!!

So annoyed at myself for planting the ferns outside, can't even bring them indoors as I have no space for them!!

Excited about the strawberries! Is it worth putting something around or over them to stop slugs and deter birds? Some sort of netting?

That tomato will be fine in its current pot for at least a couple of weeks.

Where do you live? In the South the ferns may be fine in a sheltered spot. If they are in pots rather than the ground, you could always bring them inside over the winter.

It's definitely worth putting something over the strawberries if they're outside. You'll need something self supporting because if you just drape a net over the top, the birds will just peck through it. You can put both those plants in the same trough so you'll only have one to protect. You can spend ££ on buying something to do the job, or if you're like me and have loads of potentially useful stuff hanging around you can improvise with wire coat hangers bent into hoops and draped with old net curtain. Or whatever you have lying around.

I shouldn't really tempt you but if you eat runner or French beans, I'd recommend buying half a dozen plants and putting them in at the back of a flower border with a cane to grow up. They were originally grown as ornamental plants and they look very pretty. And you get a big yield from a small space.

This is a really good time of year to get into gardening, things are just beginning to wake up and take off so you've timed it perfectly.

I have just put my new strawberry plants into troughs like yours. I've done very well with them over the past few years (ironically, in 2020, the best performing variety of strawberry was Korona haha), and have taken runners and produced several new plants each year. If I remember correctly, my mother in law told me that year 1 of strawberry plants is their "settling in" year, and they don't produce a massive amount of fruit, years 2 and 3 and their best years, and year 4 their "running down" year, after which they should be discarded. When I've done runners, I do try and remember to put a plant tag in with each one with the variety and the year they were "made".

You can scatter crushed eggshells around the plants as a pest deterrent (varying degrees of success with this) or you can get strawberry mats to put down. I've got some somewhere, but keep forgetting to use them, so I can't say if they're effective or not.

Two years ago, I bought a fruit cage and had all my strawberry troughs on the ground (about 30 of them I think) covered by the cage, which definitely kept the birds out, but not the snails. Unfortunately, we had some extreme winds and the fruit cage got destroyed.

Good luck with them - you'll be hooked before you know it, and it's a great way of encouraging your little one to explore eating different fruits/vegetables, if they've helped to grow them.

It's funny you mention the egg shells because whilst I've just been putting the strawberry plants in the trough I remembered my gran crushing eggshells so thought I'd have a Google! You've answered my question already though! We est loads of eggs in this house so I'll start putting shells on the soil thank you!

I was tempted by a chocolate mint plant as well today but put it back before I got a but too ahead of my current (zero) capabilities!! I want some nice smelling things in my garden, plants that don't need much sun and are quite hardy.

I like the look of those hanging bags too to go on on my front garden fence to add some colour whilst walking up the path. The fence I'm thinking of gets alot of sun. I was thinking of planting the strawberries this way but i have alot of bluetits visit the bird feeders in the front and I think they'd end up eating the strawberries!!

I'm determined to make a go of gardening this year!

If you do start to save your egg shells, make sure you wash them out well before crushing and adding them to the plants :)

The bluetits wouldn't eat the strawberries! But they would remove(some) aphids and caterpillars from your plants. They're excellent friends innthe garden.

The strawberry thieves are mainly blackbirds and thrushes. And pigeons and starlings will eat anything.

Oh I have so many pigeons! They're so cheeky too. When I have the back door open they come trotting into the house!

The only skill you need to grow mint is ruthlessness. Never, ever, ever just plant it in the ground or it will take over. If you don't want to put it in a pot you can put it in a big pot and sink that into the ground. That way you at least stand a chance of containing it.

Hello!
The stems at the base of my strawberry plants aren't green, am I doing something wrong?

No! Totally normal. They look nice and healthy, OP.

<reminds self to weed much-neglected strawberry-bed>

Thank you!! Really appreciate your reassurance

Strawberries are really easy to propagate. Take cuttings from the runners and just plant up in pots outside somewhere. In late autumn bring a few inside onto a sunny window sill or conservatory. Treat them as you would any other house plant and you could have a first crop sometimes between February and end of April.

Morning!

Can I ask why are my strawberry plants looking so awful please?! We (and some cheeky birds) have had a few strawberries, but the leaves are now brown and plants looking rather sorry for themselves.

Please help! Any advice on my browning strawberry plants?!