Strawberries’ Overview – From Seeds to Fruits :)

 

In March 2015, my 11-year-old daughter’s birthday wish was to harvest strawberries in our apartment. 🙂

It would not be a hard wish to grant if we were living in a temperate climate region, but we are living in Singapore, a tropical country.

Right from the start, we were met with disbelief and skepticism when we told friends what we wanted to do.

They all thought I was crazy!!!

Our impossible mission began in March 2015, after watching a few videos on how other people grew strawberries from seeds.

Most of these how-to videos were from Europe or the United States.

There were none from South East Asia, at least not the English speaking ones that we could find.

The first strawberries seeds germinated on April 4, 2015, from a packet of seeds from Far East Flora, a local nursery near home.

 

 

It took 10 days to see our first strawberries seeds sprouting!

There was no going back after this point.

 

 

A week later, we decided to see if we could harvest seeds ourselves and germinate seedlings from store-bought fresh strawberries.

We discovered that matured seeds from ripe fresh fruits had a faster germination rate of 2 to 5 days instead of 10 days.

This was my daughter’s first video for our blog on how to choose the matured fresh strawberry seeds for germination.

 

 

 

However, in late December 2015, we were advised by American growers that harvesting from fresh strawberries was not a good idea.

All our supermarkets’ strawberries are hybrids, they would not grow true to parent plants.

Our own experience with these seedlings showed they did not last long.

Most of our seedlings from fresh strawberries died in the 5th month or after they were transplanted to deeper pots.

 

 

I hope this excitement of discoveries and the spirit of learning led them to research in fields of their interests when they grow up.

We created our group on Facebook, ” SG Farming in Apartments“,  to share our experience on May 1, 2015.

More pictures on how we began to harvest day’s posts were pinned at the top of this group.

Our link is at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/866039746800973/

 

Please follow our post “How to Germinate Strawberry seeds” on how to start seeds.

 

By mid-May 2015, we had 60 strawberry seedlings thriving in our bedroom.

The kids and I were thrilled to pieces.

We felt we were now strawberries “farmers”!!!

 

 

EXCITEMENT!

From these tiny sprouts, more leaves appeared.

They were such pretty seedlings, and this was the first time we saw strawberries’ seedlings.

The question of whether our strawberry plants can really bear fruits troubled me constantly.

I told my daughter we would take them as far as we can, not wanting to disappoint her with false hopes.

 

 

 

As we would be away during the June holidays, and not wanting to bother my elderly parents too much, we decided to give half of our 60 seedlings to seasoned gardeners in Singapore.

 

 

Due to over-watering, pests had invaded our soil when we returned home after our June break.

We decided to change the soil instead of applying pesticides and took the opportunity to look at strawberry’s roots.

 

 

 

Please follow the post on “How to Transplant Strawberry Plants” for tips!

By the 4th month, strawberry plants became hardier.

They are drought-resistant and need less water.

At this time, the soil should be more acidic.

Yeh Gerald from Urban Farmers (Singapore) Facebook’s group, advised adding used ground coffee to the soil.

 

 

 

As the strawberry plants grew, space to grow them at my only sunny window in the apartment was running out.

 

 

For us, with limited sun, our best solution is to climb upwards!

All our vertical towers are recycled from used plastic water bottles and painted white to reflect heat away from the plants.

 

 

 

I am guessing that my daughter is the only kid in school who can say she is sleeping and studying in a strawberry garden in tropical Singapore!

On September 20, 2015, when the strawberries were five months old, flower buds were found on our strawberry plants.

A couple of days later, these flowers bloom.

We were really happy to see them.

Fruiting seems possible at this stage.

 

 

Two-legged bees were put to work, pollinating these flowers with a paintbrush.

A friend from our gardening group, Ms. Regina Fok, send us a link with information on how to do this.

Summer presented a video in YouTube to show how we pollinated ours.

 

 

 

In Singapore, because of high humidity, we cannot rely exclusively on natural elements like wind or bees (which we don’t have in our room) to pollinate strawberries’ flowers.

 

 

The best chance to see fruits is to lend a human’s helping hand.

When pollination is successful, the petals dropped within the day and its bald head started to face downwards.

Strawberry’s petals will darken and looked bruise before shedding.

 

 

Two or more flowers may bloom on the same stem, although the rate of successful pollination was not uniform.

 

 

 

Fruiting process starts as soon as petals are dropped and the flower’s bud drooped down.

This happened within a week instead of months as we expected.

The Strawberry plant baby is really ugly!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the beginning, we love to use only natural fertilizer to feed our strawberries, even making our own KELP fertilizer . 

This story shared on TEDx stage on May 28 2016. 🙂

Thank you, TEDxPickering Street for the honor to share our story.

 

 

All the videos here are written and presented by children, using their own words.

Summer was 11 years old and she is our spokesperson for the English communities. Shona was 8 years old, and she usually represented in Japanese (the Year 2015).

Our story in a 2018 article by Eudora Chua on this experience with the children’s voices.

We looked back on how we began this journey and what life goals achieved and joys it brought us.

The children enjoyed making these how-to videos and sharing our experience.

We hope you enjoyed them too.

 

August 7 2016 – We harvested our second variety of strawberries.

The children and I love these Heirloom Pineapple strawberries even more than the red variety!

Check out why they are so special at the above link.

 

 

 

WORKSHOPS and Heirloom strawberry seeds are available for consideration.