Summer wouldn’t be complete without the delightful presence of strawberries. While supermarkets offer them year-round, the joy of home-grown fruit during the season is unparalleled. Strawberries thrive in various containers like pots, window boxes, hanging baskets, growing bags, and specialized planters, making them suitable for small gardens, balconies, and even windowsills. Growing strawberries can be a delightful activity, especially for children. so, let’s know how to grow strawberries beautifully.
Whether purchased as pot-grown plants from a garden center in summer or as mail-order runners in spring or autumn, strawberries come in different varieties with varying harvest times – early, mid-, and late-season. Opting for a mix of varieties allows for a prolonged harvesting season.
Monthly Gardening Tasks:
April:
- Introduce new plants from bare-root runners to kickstart the growing season.
April to June:
- Transition to planting pot-grown plants, ensuring a continuous influx of fresh greenery in your garden.
June to July:
- Shield plants with nets and surround them with straw or mats to protect the developing fruits. Begin the eagerly awaited strawberry harvest.
July to August:
- As the fruiting season concludes, remove nets and tidy up by clearing away straw or mats. Commence the propagation of new plants from existing runners.
September:
- Welcome the fall season by planting fresh plants derived from home-grown runners or opt for the convenience of planting bare-root, mail-order runners. Keep the cycle of strawberry cultivation thriving.
Alternatively, everbearing, remontant, or perpetual varieties yield fruits intermittently throughout summer, featuring smaller berries. These are ideal for smaller gardens due to their extended cropping season and minimal space requirements. Compact Alpine strawberries, with their tiny berries, thrive in semi-shaded spots or at the front of a border, excelling in pots.
Typically, strawberry plants produce abundant fruit for three or four years before losing vigor. However, they are easily propagated from runners, ensuring a continual supply of fresh plants.
How to grow strawberries
Cultivating delectable strawberries involves establishing them in a carefully prepared strawberry bed, pot, growing bag, or specialized strawberry planter. Choose a sheltered location that receives ample sunlight for optimal growth and sweetness in the fruits. Enhance the soil by incorporating generous amounts of well-rotted horse manure or nutrient-rich garden compost before planting.
Ensuring proper hydration, especially during hot weather, is crucial for thriving strawberry plants. Regular watering is recommended to maintain soil moisture levels. Additionally, provide a consistent supply of nutrients by feeding the plants with a high-potash fertilizer, starting from early spring onward.
The rewarding process of harvesting strawberries begins when the fruits display a vibrant red hue across their entire surface. This visual cue indicates their readiness for picking, ensuring a sweet and juicy experience.
To sustain a productive strawberry patch, it’s advisable to replace plants every three or four years. This can be achieved by introducing fresh plants or propagating new ones from existing runners, ensuring a continuous cycle of vibrant, flavorful strawberries in your garden.
How to plant strawberries in the ground
You can buy strawberry plants at the garden centre in late spring and summer. Prepare the soil well first by digging in plenty of well-rotted garden compost or manure. Then scatter a high-potash general fertiliser over the soil. Plant the strawberry plants 30-45cm apart, in rows 75cm apart, so their roots are just buried, and firm the soil around them. Water in well and keep well watered for the first few weeks as they establish.
Growing strawberries in pots
![The best containers for strawberries The best containers for strawberries](https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/10/2018/02/8ea2e034-4652-4c92-8b37-c68af6225649-c897f0a.jpg?quality=90&fit=700,466)
Strawberries grow extremely well in pots, hanging baskets and window boxes. Choose a deep pot that’s at least 15cm wide and plant one strawberry per pot. They thrive in moist but well-drained conditions, so use a soil-based compost with a deep layer of gravel or broken crocks in the base. Encourage flowers and fruit set by feeding with a liquid high potash feed (such as tomato food) every week or two from early spring onwards.
You can also grow strawberries in growing bags. A growing bag will support six to eight strawberry plants, especially if you lay one bag over another, with holes cut around the bag, to allow roots to penetrate to the full depth.
Growing strawberries from bare-root runners
Opting for mail-order runners presents an economical and traditional approach when acquiring strawberry plants, particularly advantageous for those initiating a new strawberry patch. These runners, typically available in spring and autumn, come in bundles of 10-15 plants. Characterized by long roots and a modest tuft of leaves on top, they offer a cost-effective means of establishing a flourishing strawberry garden.
For successful planting, it is essential to prepare the soil thoroughly in advance. Plant the strawberries with their roots just below the surface, spacing them approximately 30-45cm apart, and firmly compact the soil around them. Adequate watering during the initial weeks is crucial to promote healthy establishment.
Strawberries require a period of cold exposure to initiate flowering and fruiting, ideally experiencing temperatures below 7°C for at least two weeks. To align with this requirement, consider ordering and planting your runners in autumn. Alternatively, if autumn passes, you can opt for ‘cold-stored’ runners, artificially chilled and available from mid-spring, ensuring fruit production approximately 60 days after planting.
Strawberry plant care
![2048x1365-Best-strawberries-to-grow-LI1386544 Strawberry 'Royal Sovereign'](https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/10/2018/03/2048x1365-Best-strawberries-to-grow-LI1386544-ff861be.jpg?quality=90&fit=700,466)
To ensure the thriving growth of your strawberry plants, adhere to a regular watering schedule, especially during the establishment of new plants and in hot weather. Be cautious not to wet the center of the plant or any ripening fruits, as this precaution helps prevent the development of grey mould.
In early spring, apply a general-purpose fertilizer around the plants in the ground, following the instructions on the packaging. Starting from early spring onwards, foster flowering and fruit set by regularly feeding your strawberry plants with a high-potash feed, such as tomato feed, every one or two weeks (as per the pack instructions).
As the fruits begin to develop, strategically place straw around the plants or use a strawberry mat for each plant. This practice serves multiple purposes, keeping the berries clean, deterring slugs and snails, and suppressing weed growth.
To safeguard your strawberry harvest from birds and small mammals, consider using netting. Carefully fix the netting to prevent entanglement of birds, hedgehogs, slow worms, and other animals. Ideally, use a fixed net cage with openings large enough for pollinators to access strawberry flowers. By attentively securing loose netting, you can ensure the safety of wildlife while protecting your precious strawberry crop.
How to protect strawberry crops
To encourage strong growth for next year’s crop, after fruiting finishes, cut off foliage to about 5cm above ground level and give plants a good feed with a general-purpose fertiliser (again, follow the instructions on the pack). Take away all of the old straw around the plants to avoid a build-up of pests and diseases. Remove any netting so that birds can eat any pests in the ground.
After three to four years, fruit size and quality declines so you will need to replace your plants with new stock. The easiest way to do this is to propagate your own plants, from the runners that they produce
Harvesting strawberries
![Picking strawberries Picking strawberries](https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/10/2018/02/14750761-f25e-493e-b8df-25c3cf42d27f-420e398.jpg?quality=90&fit=700,466)
Wait until the berries are fully red all over before harvesting, as they do not continue to ripen once picked. Simply pinch through the stalks with your finger and thumb to avoid bruising the fruit. As strawberries are perishable, it’s best to eat them straight from the plant, ideally still warm from the sun. You can store unwashed fruit for a few days in the fridge.
Propagating strawberry plants from runners
![Pegging strawberry runner in place Pegging strawberry runner in place](https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/10/2018/02/5550df7b-712c-47d6-bfb8-e47184b687d8-1a79793.jpg?quality=90&fit=700,466)
Step 1
Choose a healthy runner which has produced one or more leaves, and remove any stems emerging from the new leaves, while keeping it still attached to the parent plant. Fill pots with multi-purpose compost. Place the strawberry runner on the surface and hold it in place using a u-shaped staple or a piece of wire.
![Propagating strawberries from runners Propagating strawberries from runners](https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/10/2018/02/99989aa5-ab16-4b4a-9431-e074dd25f842-4ba2728.jpg?quality=90&fit=700,466)
Step 2
Don’t snip off the stem linking the new plant to its parent – keep this until the new plant has developed strong roots. Keep the compost moist at all times.
![Removing long runners from strawberry plant Removing long runners from strawberry plant](https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/10/2018/02/f0bd0014-d51f-4582-aa3c-ba662f512d9e-4c7111b.jpg?quality=90&fit=700,466)
Step 3
As soon as the plants are strongly rooted, snip off the stem connecting it to the parent plant, and plant in into a larger pot, or out into prepared ground.
In this video, Monty Don explains why you should replace your strawberry plants every three years, how to propagate new strawberry plants from runners, which ones to select for the biggest yields, and where to grow them.
Growing strawberries: problem solving
![A strawberry thickly covered in botrytis grey mould A strawberry thickly covered in botrytis grey mould](https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/10/2018/02/57f2a378-3bc5-431d-9e51-6e14a8426a44-6eb143c.jpg?quality=90&fit=700,466)
Strawberries, delicious as they are, are susceptible to various challenges including pests and diseases. Here’s how to address some common issues organically:
- Slugs and Snails:
- Use straw around the fruit to deter slugs and snails.
- Explore other organic pest control methods such as beer traps or copper tape.
- Birds:
- Protect strawberries from birds, particularly blackbirds, by covering fruits with secure netting.
- Grey Mould (Botrytis):
- Water plants in the morning to allow time for drying, avoiding splashing water onto the fruit.
- Keep the soil clear of debris, as the fungus survives on plant material.
- Remove damaged fruits promptly to prevent the spread of grey mould.
- Powdery Mildew:
- Maintain soil moisture and promptly remove affected leaves.
- Space out plants to improve air circulation and prevent overcrowding.
- Weed regularly, as they can contribute to the spread of the fungus.
- Frost Damage:
- Protect strawberries from late frosts by covering them with fleece or moving pots under cover.
- Vine Weevil:
- Handpick adult vine weevils and squash them.
- Employ biological controls to target the larvae, applied in late summer and autumn.
- Verticillium Wilt:
- Prevent this soil-borne fungal disease by avoiding planting strawberries where susceptible plants (chrysanthemums, potatoes, aubergines, tomatoes) were previously grown.
- Ensure well-drained soil and avoid transferring the disease through contaminated footwear.
- No chemical controls are available, so remove affected plants and consider planting resistant varieties in a different location.
By adopting these organic methods, you can address and mitigate common issues, ensuring a healthy and productive strawberry crop.
Advice for buying strawberry plants
- Choose a variety of strawberries that fruit at different times, so you can harvest them over a longer season. There are early, mid- and late-season varieties to choose from. You can often find ready-selected collections available online or by mail order
- For smaller gardens, ‘everbearing’ or ‘perpetual’ strawberries can provide a long strawberry season without taking up the space that several varieties would
- You can buy ready-grown plants at the garden centre in spring and early summer, but for the best selection, buy from a specialist fruit nursery or order bare-root runners online in spring or autumn
- Alpine varieties are often sold alongside herb plants at the garden centre; you can also grow them from seed
- Check all plants for signs of pests and disease before planting
Where to buy strawberry plants online
Great strawberries to grow
![How to grow strawberries](https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/10/2018/02/482ff24f-ac6f-48fb-b125-c8fe321b1a7d-5ce126e.jpg?quality=90&fit=700,466)
Summer-cropping strawberries:
- ‘Elvira’ – heavy crops and good disease resistance. An early variety
- ‘Elsanta’ – heavy cropper with large, tasty, red fruits. A mid-season variety
- ‘Hapil’ – large glossy fruits, even in dry conditions. A mid-season variety
- ‘Honeoye’ – prolific fruiter with large, firm berries. A mid-season variety
- ‘Pegasus’ – sweet, juicy, top-quality berries. A mid-season variety
- ‘Symphony’ – good yields. A late-season variety
Everbearing strawberries:
- ‘Aromel’ – abundant dark red, juicy berries
- ‘Christine’ – sweet fruits that ripen in late May
- ‘Mara des Bois’ – large, deliciously aromatic frui
Strawberry recipes
![Hulling strawberries Hulling strawberries](https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/10/2018/02/63507195-ea92-42a8-bb67-5d9902ed05fc-f51ceb8.jpg?quality=90&fit=700,466)
Strawberries can be eaten in a number of ways: alone, with cream, and as ingredients in a smoothies, cakes and other desserts. Damp strawberries will quickly go mouldy, so only wash what you can eat and blot them dry on kitchen paper. Hull (remove the green calyx) them before using them – just slice it off with a knife. If you’re lucky enough to have a glut, whizz them into delicious smoothies or use to make jam. Some varieties are suitable for freezing.
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