Topic: Strawberry spacing in planters :)

[Hector]

I've been making planters out of pallets which are similar to these.

The internal dimension is ..
width 17 and half inches
length 48 inches
height 17 inches

How many would you folk plant in this. The lady planted 14. It's Mara De Bois that I have.


Crikey pallets are hefty!

[Tee Gee]

Apart from the height of your planters these dimension are similar in size to a good quality growbag where the advice is to grow three or four plants per bag.

For you to get more i.e double that make them shallower by half and you will get two planters out of your current planters.

[Hector]

Sorry Teegee, would help if I'd put a pic or link. It's one of the tiered approach planters.
http://lovelygreens.com/2013/05/how-to-make-better-strawberry-pallet.html

[Tee Gee]

OK now I can see what you have made.

Well I have never liked multi storey planting because I always think the weight of the upper soil and plants damages the bottom layer.

Look at this way if you are watering & Feeding the uppermost plants are going to take up the moisture/feeding before the water/fertiliser gets to the bottom of the pile.

So in  the case here what I would do is make it two storey in that way you can have six on the top layer and six on the lower layer where the three side plants are situated between the upper plants (echelon style) then stick one plant on the lower layer at the end of the planter.

o    x     o    x    o   

X                       x           

o    x     o    x    o   

o = Upper layer

x = lower layer.

Total 12 plants, 16 if you want to cram in another plant per row.

This system will make your planters much lighter and use less compost

I hope you understand what I am getting at, if not get back to us.

[Hector]

I understand. I'd thought similar, so was thinking of separating layers with some old weed suppressing fabric I have ( permeable) to stop bottom layer being squished. I'm putting a seep hose through the layers as a wee experiment. We had a fair few runners last year and have handed on to friends and family but thought I'd give this a punt as my husbands business means we get a small supply of clean pallets through the year :)

Thanks for that, really helped me visualise. I will go for more space/ happy Strawberries.

[Tee Gee]

OK the seep hose will take care of the moisture content but how do you plan to feed the lower layers?

There is a way by using reservoirs along at the supply end of the seep hose but it will require a bit of plumbing with inlet and outlet valves to control the flow when feeding"........but I won't go into that 

The membrane will not support the weight of the soil above so you will find that the lower layer may compact so much that it starves the roots of the lower layer of air.

They say one at a time is good fishing in this case I would stretch to two but not three!

[Hector]

I'm going to have a think :)

[ancellsfarmer]

Hector,
What you have built is what we throw away and/or burn !(but generally pull apart and build things with!) Its a crate used to transport/import fireplaces. I am sure if you approach your nearest fireplace showroom, they will give you a selection of of these. They come to accomodate 42", 48" or 54" mantels, so are slightly larger. Generally made of corsican pine , but would last 3/4 years. If you were 300 miles further south, your supply would be assured!
Send PM if you want to collect from GU1