partial fall report

the jerusalem artichokes had died back tot he point they were not going to be feeding any more tuber growth so i decided to cut them down and clear the bed...and when i finished i thought to check on the two wild strawberry plants that had started the season there and see how they had fared competing with their gigantic ( comparatively ) neighbors...

the plant closest to the edge of the bed received much more sunlight and seems to have spent a good deal of energy in putting out stolons and daughters...

the one more interior to the bed spent more time on leaves than stolons...the exterior plant more than made up for that lack however...

which has produced ten clusters of daughter plants of varying size along the edges of the bed,at least one of which has escaped the confines of the bed with stolons of its own...they adapted and went where thew was sufficient light..

remember this past spring when the east bed looked like this? well...no more...

they have multiplied beyond the initial thirty odd stolons i had counted in, i believe , may...

into the corners of the bed...

and have engulfed the tomato i planted this past spring in what was an open part of the bed...this bed it seems will be given over to asparagus and strawberries...hopefully they will cohabit peacefully...

finally, thought he new york imports stopped blooming in may, the native wild berries are soldiering on and will do so until october brings a hard frost...they are all "tough little plants".

overshoot ( or when do you halt an irruption )

we can start with what seems to be the most rational and sustainable use of resources and move on to clear overshoot...the north bed of strawberries is shade hampered in its growth ( this at least my opinion ) and so its colonization of its surroundings has been more measured...i counted twenty stolons and four rooted daughter plants there this morning and no sign of a berry...

the south bed has had significantly more sun up to this point and has been a more productive bed is=n some aspects...here too are twenty stolons...there are also five daughter plants, two of which i have pinned in pots to move elsewhere ( where being the salient question )...the stolons and daughters that have established themselves along the north edge of the bed will, i think, continue to prosper and try to expand...the ones that headed south towards the jerusalem artichokes will be, eventually , shaded out as those plants grow and shade the sunlight...the biggest difference here is the ample sunlight turned the two original plants into prolific bloomers and they both are producing a quantity of berries unmatched anywhere else in the yard...there will be birds here and seeds will be spread...i am not averse to this "wilding" and, hopefully, they will be appreciated wherever they establish themselves...

to this point i have based my assessments of behaviors mostly on exposure to sunlight and it is at this point that it begins to become clear that there are more variables than that at work...the east bed is parked just south of a pair of locust trees...locust trees leaf later in spring than other trees in the yard so, until the past week or so, this bed has had nearly the same exposure to the sun as the south bed...and because it is south of the trees it will continue to receive direct sunlight for at least part of the day...that said the behaviors here are markedly different than either of the other beds..i counted forty-seven stolons radiating from three plants...twelve rooted daughters...three of which are pinned in pots to move to who knows where ( i see the campus garden as a target...in my bed anyway )...there were blooms in this bed but not nearly as many as in the south bed...and there are berries in progress...but not as many and nowhere near as large...so...eighty-seven stolons and eleven plants have produced twenty-one daughters...thirty-two strawberry plants in my yard an no sign of any sort of slowdown...the deepening shade from the trees and the jerusalem artichokes may slow things down..or speed them up..this is a learning process for me...all i can do at the moment is watch and try to find space for the daughters...clearly the east bed plants are rapidly using up the carrying capacity and will have to be controlled if the onions, asparagus ( although the asparagus is so deeply rooted it might not care ), tomato, and volunteer cucumbers are going to stand a chance of having a season...this may become an object lesson in microcosm of larger issues.

doing what they need to do ( and verging on unmanagable )

last year, when i planted these wild strawberries, i expected invasive behaviors based on prior experience with domesticated strawberries which are not shy about producing daughter plants...i did not really expect this sort of irruption...but there it is...there are thirty-eight stolons in this photo of the east bed...just over half of the total of seventy i inventoried this morning...

placement of daughters, beyond a suitable distance from the mother plant, does not seem to be a matter of any great importance...this daughter is rooted next to an onion ( which will complicate the onion harvest ) and the stolon has moved on towards the periphery of the bed...

the south bed is somewhat less prolific in stolons...however there were more blooms here....and berries ( more there in a minute)...even still, at least one daughter is trying to escape the confines of the bed...

the north bed is the poorest in all respects...the plants are spreading but at a much slower rate...fewer stolons...no discernible berries...my presumption is the same shade that helps the ramps thrive has somewhat stunted the berries...

even with all the other unbridled activity in the beds, Jean's berries have managed to come to fruition...this is a ripe as they come...red in the south bed sunshine...it was warm, sweet, and tasted fine...which evokes a thought...but that is another post.

fecund

there are stolons pinned in pots...

and headed off through the spuds towards the iffy environment of the jerusalem artichoke colony...

and that is just the two plants in the south bed...

not the stolonfest in the est bed where i will be pinning more daughter plants in pots before it is all done with...

even the smallest plant in the bed on the north end has decided to reproduce...i knew from our experience in growing domesticated strawberries in the old community garden on campus that the plants were enthusiastic producers of daughters...twelve plants there turned into twenty-one by season's end...yesterday i counted forty-four stolons out there...who knows how many there are today...i did not take a census...i will...eventually i will have to control this by cutting stolons...all perennials are invasive colonizers...some faster than others...i believe the jerusalem artichokes may have met their match...

on the plus side the berries are still cooking away.

thirty two

at least one berry in the south bed has begun to show some tinges of red...others should follow...that is not the focus of this post however...the focus is still reproduction and it seems to be accelerating...exponentially may be too strong a word here ( even though each plant that is producing stolons is now producing more than one each )...arithmetically doesn't quite cover it though...

over in the south bed, two plants...nine stolons...plus the largest number of berries...also the sunniest spot...a definite correlation...between sunshine and berries...i am not so certain about the stolon part...

up north the plants have produced a paltry five stolons between them...

the east bed is not the sunniest spot in the yard...there are some berries cooking away here...but the number of stolons produced by just three plants outpaces the other two beds combined...

with stolons having deposited potted daughter plants and moved on their way...

and what you might call auxiliary stolons branching off other stolons, three plants have accounted for eighteen stolons...i am facing the possibility of thirty two daughter plants from the surviving eleven of the original twelve plants...and it is only roughly two thirds of the way through may..one could hope for a slow down but i am not sanguine about that..these are not domesticated strawberries ( which, if you had been reading a few years back about the old community garden on campus you would know are no slouches at producing daughters themselves )...they are the "wild and weedy" ancestors..."slow down" may not be in their vocabulary...admittedly these plants do not bear fruit indefinitely and daughters are a necessity to propagate and make more berries...so they can pretty much have the east bed to romp in...the asparagus is so deeply rooted it won't care...at some point however i will have to interfere to keep things under some sort of control...all perennials are invasive...have a look at the jerusalem artichoke issues in the other blog...and the volunteer potatoes ( yes they are a perennial...people just grow them like annuals..leave some in the ground and see what happens )...hard-nosed colonizers.