Strawberries from a Bonnie potted plant

For this planting I am going to use a Bonnie potted plant that is available at most home improvement stores.  Being as these are started in dirt it may get shocked a bit.  Hopefully it won't die but I expect it to live as many people use this technique.  First select the best looking plant you can find in the store.  No excessive dead leaves, no yellowing and no pests.  I took this and set it to the side of my growbed for a couple days to get it kinda used to my grow light.  Now on to the planting.


First prepare a hole in the growbed for the plant.  Notice the large netpot over the bell siphon hole.  That stops any pebbles from going down into the siphon.  Now to dig the hole I scoop away a bit of the pebbles then use a netpot with the bottom cut out to make the hole.


This is the plant we are going to use.  These Bonnie plants come in a biodegradable pot.  You are just supposed to take off the plastic wrapper and put it in the dirt.  But even when container or dirt gardening I still remove the pot.  They grow better with out it.  For aquaponics we definitely have to remove it.  Hold onto the plant and use a hose to gently remove the dirt from the roots.  You want all the dirt and the white fertilizer pelets removed.


It should look like this when cleaned.  Put this into the netpot, the one with the bottom cut out.  Then gently remove the pot from the grow bed.  The pebbles should gently fill in the space.  Fill any remaining space by hand and be gentle.


And done.  Now it either survives or it does not.