Planting strawberries and protecting potatoes

Tuesday 16th May
Having weeded the strawberry bed I wanted to plant up the runners that I have nurtured all winter. They are from the 'Elsanta' plants that grew and fruited vigorously. The 'Hapil' and 'Honeoye' plants I bought at the same time have not been so successful. Of the dozen plants set out only 3 of each have survived. That it's despite 'Hapil' supposedly being good for dry sandy soils. And 'Honeoye' was to give me an early crop!
I had enough plants to start a second patch to follow on when the first set get older (that should be after the third year fruiting) but first I had to rearrange the left over 'Honeoye' plants. However I soon had a patch of new runners clearly labelled so I renewed the labels on all the strawberries, including the 'Mara du Bois' perpetual strawberries in the end patch.

The finished strawberry bed with the patch in front cleared of the huge old 'Purple Sprouting' plants that I have finally removed.
Having put up a warning notice about potato blight, I decided to earth up my potatoes to cover the leaves up as much as possible to limit their vulnerability. The first earlies were almost completely covered as they have been hit hard by the frosts. The second earlies had much more foliage and show well above the bigger ridges. The maincrop potatoes were easy to cover completely.

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​I moved on to setting up my climbing bean canes. I had constructed a beam with holes for the canes at 10cm. Intervals which I fixed onto the 3 sets of stakes along the row. Unfortunately when I tried to push the canes up through the holes they were too small so next visit I will have to enlarge the holes!

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​I then cut some asparagus but tripped over the stake marking the row of what I thought was Sarpo Mira potatoes. Putting it back I was horrified to see it was the 'King Edwards' row, the most vulnerable potatoes I grow! A quick session with my cultivate and a draw hoe had them well covered before I went home.