Young strawberry seedling - the beginnning

The strawberry seedling is very small and fragile. When you want to transplant it, you need to be very careful. You wouldn't want to damage the root of the seedling. You can germinate the seeds via direct sowing into the soil or using paper towel in a bag. Both worked and I think that when you transfer the seedlings from the paper towel to the soil, you need to be very careful.

Strawberry seedlings dying

The seedlings have been transplanted and after many weeks, they have started to turn brown and dying. I'm not sure what is the root cause of this.

I have examined the soil and see that there are many white dots on the surface of the soil. But looking closely, the white dots are moving and I suspect they are infested by some insects. I was thinking of aphids as they are white. The seedlings may not be strong enough to withstand this infestation.

I have quarrantined these seedlings away from the other strawberry plants (mature ones). The infested ones are on the left side of the balcony which are receving most sunlight (the left side is the east). The strawberry seedlings on the right side are doing well. Is it possible that the sunlight is too strong for the seedlings to handle? I'm not sure and maybe it is just a coincident.

The strawberry plants on the right side of the balcony (receving the west sun) are throwing out many runners. I want to propagate more strawberry and to experiment on the different type of soil (to weed out the infestation). The new type of soil that I using now is a mixed soil with volcanic sand. It is quite fine.

Currently, I have ten runners growing in the new soil and I will cut them away from the parent plants after three weeks. I will update more when I have the information. Stay tuned!

Growing strawberries from seeds in Singapore

There are some shops selling strawberry seeds such as the NTUC Fairprice supermarkets and the local nurseries. I bought one packet from NTUC two years back and managed to grow some strawberry seedlings but after a couple of months they kaput and stopped growing. Eventually, all died.

I tried to grow by using the seeds from the strawberries that I bought from the supermarkets. It was quite tedious to remove one seed at a time from the strawberry fruit. I wasn't sure which one is good but using my common sense, I would assume those big and protruded seeds on the fruit were the best ones. The germination rate for strawberry is quite low, so you need to extract as many as you can from the fruit. I would go with at least 20 seeds. The germination period is also quite long. Mine took about 3 to 4 weeks to germinate.

I did a wrong thing by transferring the seedlings when they are about one week old to another pot. I should have waited for at least 2 to 3 months before transferring them to a bigger pot. I guessed that during the transferring, I might have injured or damaged the fragile roots.

I have started to germinate some seeds taken from the strawberries from a local nursery. I hope they can survive and grow into bigger plants. I have started in end May and now I have quite a number of young seedlings. I think the seedlings can be transplanted into bigger pots in August. Join my mailing list to get update of my progress.

Seedlings @ 15 July 2016

Mission impossible but not for me...

When I mentioned that I'm growing strawberries in Singapore, all people will tell me that it is mission impossible. Well, I tell you, it is POSSIBLE!!! And I'm going to prove to you that I have done it and the strawberry plants are growing well.

I'm thinking of selling away some of the strawberry plants that I have propagated and hopefully, many more Singaporeans can enjoy growing strawberries in Singapore!

Wow! Strawberries in Singapore!

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