Strawberries
Near Dunn, North Carolina
by Dana
Dudley
Created: April 21, 2011
Apr 8, 2010
This was taken last year. It is a
makeshift planter box using old timber from an old outbuilding so
I could
recycle the wood.
When I placed the tender organic strawberries into the glyphosate herbicide treated soil, most of the
plants perished within a short
time frame - maybe a week or less.
Out of the total 30 plants, there were 15
for the control group, and 15 for the ORMUS.
May 21, 2010
As you can see, the glyphosate
had an impact on the plants. They never seemed to be able to thrive.
Every time
a new set of leaf brackets appeared, the old ones died. I ended up with
3
control, and 4 of our ORMUS at the end of the first month.
You can tell ours from the other plants. They
stand
taller and have lots of leaf brackets.
May 25, 2010
This is one of the control plants. Not
looking too
good either.
Here is one of the ORMUS strawberry plants.
It is very
healthy, and it has runners which are already developing brackets of
leaves.
May 29, 2010
The control plants are having problems
surviving. I
did not change the soil or add anything to either side at this point. I
wanted
to see about plant stress. Here is my result.
This is only a few days later. Even the
runners are
getting their own runners now! This is an ORMUS plant, one of the 4
which
survived.
I have added compost to this side only now. The 3 remaining control
plants did not get any compost.
Jun 30, 2010
This is the ORMUS plants a month later.
Everything is
growing and lots of the runners now have grown much larger too.
This is the same sorry pitiful plant in the
control. Nothing
seems to be happening. I even added compost to see if that would
improve the
chances of survival. Not fairing too well.
Jul 9, 2010
Here are the 3 control plants on July 9th. I
took the
picture after watering the compost and soil so the plants will show up
better
in the pictures.
These are the 4 ORMUS plants at the same
time. They
have flourished! Runners abound, and the vibrant growth is very
evident!
Jul 12, 2010
The insects seem to adore the plants in the
control.
They
had nothing added other than compost (I was afraid I would lose all the
control
plants for about 2 weeks of the drought - they kept passing off the new
growth.
The leaves are chewed. This is something I see a lot of in the
locations which
use synthetic fertilizers.
Thought you would enjoy seeing the difference
ORMUS is
making on the new planter box. Those are the $3. solar
lights you can buy at any Wal-Mart for your size comparisons.
Amazing what the 4 ORMUS plants have done!
Jul 22, 2010
Here is the planter in its entirety. The left
side is
the control group of 3 plants which survived. The right side is the 4
ORMUS
plants which also survived (not to mention thrived).
Finally! Looks like this one is going to make
it after
all! It will never catch up to our plants, that is
very evident! But it has survived!
Our plants on the other hand are flourishing
and
are taking over the entire planter box now.
Aug 15, 2010
Here are a total of 7 plants. Three
on the control side. Four on the ORMUS side.
Which
would you rather grow?
Aug 23, 2010
August 23rd, a week later. Now they are
moving into
the other side of the planter box!
Aug 29, 2010
August 29th! Our 4 plants look like many plants!
Oct 18, 2010
October 18th! Now the entire planter box is
covered
with our ORMUS plants, and the 3 small control plants are in the midst
of them!
(I marked them so I can identify them.) This year they have NO BLOSSOMS!
The 4 ORMUS plants have not only grown well,
they have
taken the entire box, and are spilling on the ground with luxurious
growth!
Feb 24, 2011
Here we are in 2011 at the end of February. I
have
just removed the pine needles which I used for a
mulch
for the entire box. I see the new blueberry plants have a few buds
appearing.
Apr 3, 2011
April 3rd, a little over 5 weeks later. Not
one
blossom on any of the control group, sadly.
Apr 6, 2011
April 6th measurements of a leaf bracket.
Apr 9, 2011
April 9th view of the blossoms appearing on
our ORMUS
plants.
Apr 15, 2011
Blossoms everywhere, even falling into the
grass! The
ORMUS is amazing! I water with a half dozen
tablespoons
per gallon.
Now I wait to eat strawberries! Not to forget to mention I
will be busy transplanting into some new boxes coming soon!
Apr 21, 2011
This was taken today
April 21st so you can see how the ORMUS causes the plant's energy
fields to go
into hyper production.
Look at these clusters of berries just beginning to
mature. I made the ORMUS and used about a
half dozen
tablespoons per gallon and watered the soil. This is the result.
Runners are appearing
everywhere now, along with the new blossoms and plenty of berries.
The strawberries are just beginning to
mature. I
had mulched with pine needles for the winter, and had no plastic
covering over
the planter box or anything else.
Just the bare elements and
normal cold winter weather. I will be watering with ORMUS again
while
they are still developing before I harvest the rewards of hard work -
my
perspiration last year!
Some of the berries are very small yet, but
with the
sun in the last two weeks, some are turning red even before fully
getting to a
nice size.
They are full of flavor. All these plants are now about a year old,
since I planted them as bare root strawberries in a control group
in one
box last spring,
as you will see in some of the other pictures in this file so
you can see the actual difference this is making.
The runners are thick and healthy, and were
dropping
out of the box until I cut them out yesterday since I don't want them
invading
the grassy areas
I will be setting down some one gallon size water jugs later
today which I have cut apart and left handles
on, then
filled with organic soil to let the runners go into them for easy
transplanting
shortly.
Here is a closer shot (sorry, not the
clearest) just
so you can see the runners starting.
As most people now know, we just had major
tornado
clusters this weekend. I am right in the middle of the area affected.
The hail
came very fast, and did a great deal of damage to the strawberry
leaves, as you
can tell.
Here is one of the leaves so you can see how
damaged
the leaves are now. The tornado didn't appear to damage the blossoms.
The tornado damage and winds were fast and
furious,
and the winds were between 120 to 140 miles per hour according to the
weather
channels and most meteorologists.
The plants seem to be recovering
quickly, since that happened only 4 days ago.
New leaves under the larger ones appear to be
undamaged and growing vigorously.
Every place I look, there are new blossoms
and berries
forming.
I am not a horticulturist, but a novice
who
adores gardening and eating the rewards. Imagine someone who knows this
as a
career and what they could accomplish for the planet!
A month or so away from berries here (I may
have
learned I should cover them all winter with plastic to keep more heat
in the
soil.)
But that error of mine hasn't appeared to stop the berry production!
They are falling outside the planter box now!
They vary in height and size, and all have
blossoms
and berries on them.
Too many for one planter box, that is already
very
evident to me, so it is back to the saw, and I will be adding some more
areas
for strawberries.
I tried to get a picture so you could see all
the way
to the dirt, but it isn't easy to find bare spots now.