Make An Old-Time Strawberry Barrel

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Place the barrels—small end cutouts down—where your berry plants will get full daytime sun. Dig out a circle of sod and topsoil a foot wider than the barrel, and replace with leveled flat rock or bricks on a disc of well-tamped crushed rock. The firm but water-permeable base will provide a solid footing, help drain soil inside the barrel, and keep the bottomwood dry and rot-free longer than if the barrel sat directly on the soil.

If it is still late winter in your area, start a couple of flats of Alpine strawberry seeds. These European wild strawberry plants, base stock for modern cultivated varieties, are hardy perennials that produce small berries—but more and larger fruit than our own na tive strawberries. They don't produce strength sapping runners.

This is the fruit that's dropped in to champagne by romantically-inclined French, and Swedish movie director Ingmar Bergman named a famous art film after them. The new variety Temptation (from Thompson & Morgan, New Jersey-based im porters of European seed; and the Canadian seedsmen Stokes Seeds) is much im proved over tradi tional and named varieties. Fifty or 80 of the tiny seeds cost about four dollars—expensive, but cheaper than two 25-plant bundles of con ventional plants.

Put the seed into germination mode by enclosing in an airtight plastic bag or freezer container and keeping in your freezer for a month. Keep the container closed and in a cool place to warm gradually. Plant in sterilized starting medium (bury a potato in a pot of your own compost and bake at 350° till done) and water from beneath the flat to keep mildew from infesting the top of the soil and killing the seedlings before they emerge in another four weeks.

Make every effort to maintain a constant soil temperature of 65° to 70° till seed germinates. A thermostatically controlled warming mat (offered in most seed catalogs) placed under the flat is the best way I know to achieve a constant soil temp. The under-flat warming promotes strong root growth. Once plants are up, you can discontinue the sub-flat warming. But keep watering from below. And assure a constant airflow over the flats to prevent fungus from girdling the little vlants at soil level. I bring well started plants into the front room where windows are open on warm days, and where, during spring cold snaps, convection from the woodstove keeps dry air moving imperceptibly but constantly.

Transplant to peat pots and harden off in an outside cold frame for a week or more before setting in the barrel, just as you do your tomato seedlings. However, don't mingle tomato or eggplant seedlings with the strawberry plants. Nightshade family members can carry viruses that will hinder or kill the young berry plants.

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