it's twins!!!

the kids are alright...the established plants continue to produce a bounty of berries...and the imported plants that i have been tracking continue to grow leaves from the crowns and are obviously adapting to new surroundings ( third through fifth photos )..but Jean!! i had though the four plants i had planted on the north end of the yard had met their demise...when i looked the bed over last week i saw nothing in the way of old leaves or new growth...so when i wandered over that way to look at mashua nd some teosinte i was pretty much stunned to see that there was new growth from the crown of one of the plants ( sixth )...but when you pull back to look at the larger picture ( seventh) you will see far more than a few leaves from the crown...there are stolons there! plural! one tot he left ( eighth ) that ends in a daughter plant ( ninth ) and one tot he left ( tenth ) that ends in another ( eleventh )..so from there plants beginning to grow again we have suddenly leapt to six! when the supplier called them "tough little plants" they were seemingly not exaggerating...so i will be paying more attention tot hat bed from now on and rooting any new stolons in pots so i can move the berry plants around...we may become the berry barons on the south end of the inland sea...more as this moves along.

more green

at least a quarter of the imported wild strawberries are exhibiting new growth which is good news.

meanwhile the established berries seem to be multiplying almost exponentially...i am afraid there may have to be some limitations placed on them...i have no objections to their being in the four patches they have created in the back yard...however i do have other things to grow and i have imported the above plants which aren't going to sit still once they get grounded in their new homes...they are perennials and as such are vigorous colonizers...limits are going to have to be set.

big...red...green

the berries out back are coming fully fledged into the season...larger...very ...very ripe...and begging the birds to eat them...this will not end for some time to come...late into autumn they will still be at it...hardy perennials with a reproductive aspiration beyond stolons...

( speaking of reproduction by stolons, the daughter plant in the pot is doing very well ) i had though Jean's wild strawberry additions tot he mix were in dire shape but they have shown a good deal of resilience...new growth...deeply green new leaves are erupting...we are in for more daughter plants

new growth

truthfully the wild strawberry plants i put in eight days ago have looked rather dead...i thought perhaps we had failed...the supplier called the "tough little plants" in the insert in the box and it would seem they know whereof they speak...there is new growth out there...leaves continue to emerge from a plant on the south side of the house ( first photo ) and in the bed on the east end ( second )...the daughter plant in the pot in the same bed has three leaves now ( third ) and i will be cutting that stolon loose soon...there are hundreds of berries out there ( fourth through sixth are a sampling ) and the blooms ( seventh ) that continue to emerge are evidence that the season is not nearly over...waiting for the new growth on the new ( not dead ) plants to catch up...more as it evolves Jean.

fragaria vesca

the wild strawberry plants Jean and i ordered from saratoga seed company ( first three photos ) arrived in the mail yesterday and i went out right after i got home from the garden to plant them...i prepared one bed along the north end of the yard by the mashua, onions, and some teosinte and planted four of the twelve plants there ( fourth through seventh )...the plan is to utilize the open space there as a nursery to grow daughter plants to spread around..a second bed went in along the bed of spuds ( eighth ) nest to a patch of the indigenous berries ( ninth and tenth )...i planted three more in the bed with the potted stolon from a few posts ago and another two by the chinese yam...a dozen hardey ( the planting instructions call them "tough" like the one in the last photo...the hope is to establish daughter plants and provide more genetic diversity through cross breeding...something i have never tried before...it is, it seems, time to learn.