Home-grown strawberries, 2009If you love strawberries, then why not have a go at growing your own? Home-grown strawberries taste much nicer than shop-bought ones and your own freshly-picked strawberries probably contain more nutrients than shop-bought ones that have often travelled many miles. The initial outlay for strawberry plants and materials may seem expensive, but bear in mind that you can produce crops of virtually cost-free strawberries for many years to come.
Preparing a New Strawberry Bed
The first thing that needs to be done is to make a bed to house the strawberry plants. This could be a raised bed, or you could simply prepare an area of ground by removing any weeds and other vegetation and giving the soil a good fork over. Alternatively, you could plant strawberry plants in a sunny garden border, or perhaps plant them in containers if you don't have that much space available. This preparation is best carried out in either late summer/early autumn, or in late winter/early spring providing that the ground is in a suitable condition. The best width for a bed or border is about four feet (120cm) so that you can reach across the bed easily without treading on the soil. If you have some spare home-made plant compost, then fork some in as strawberries like a rich and fertile soil and you could also add a sprinkling of wood ash and/or a sprinkling of seaweed meal (available from the Organic Gardening Catalogue). Strawberries grow and ripen best if they are planted in a sunny position.
When I make a new bed I usually cover the surface of the soil with some porous mulch material as this helps to prevent the plants from being choked by weeds and keeps the strawberries clean and off the soil. I purchased a nice roll of black mulch material in Wilkinson's this year for under five pounds. Before laying the mulch material I sometimes cover the surface of the soil with several layers of newspaper as this further excludes light and also helps to prevent the weeds from returning. It's possible to buy special green plastic pegs from Wilkinson's and similar shops to hold the mulch material firmly in position, but if you find that plastic pegs keep breaking in your soil then the Pound Shop sells more robust stainless steel tent pegs for £1.00 a packet that could also be used for this purpose. If you don't want to purchase pegs, then it's possible to keep the mulch material in place by weighing it down with bricks, or by burying the edges of the material in the soil. The photograph below shows the new strawberry bed that I made on my allotment this year.
A newly created strawberry bed, mulched with black material
Planting Out
You will need to cut holes in the mulch material where you intend to plant each strawberry. Holes should be about a foot apart and each hole should be several inches wider than the strawberry plant's root ball so that rainfall can penetrate into the soil. Using a trowel, make a hole that is big enough to contain the roots and plant the young strawberry plant so that its crown is at soil level. Fill each hole with some soil and firm the plant in. After planting, water well. Mulch around each plant with leaf mould if you have some as this will help to surpress weeds. You could also slip some torn up sheets of newspaper under the black mulch material to cover the area of bare soil around each plant.
Obtaining the Plants
Young strawberry plants can be purchased fairly easily by mail order (see list of suppliers below), or from local suppliers. Look out for strawberry plants on market stalls, in garden centres and in DIY stores that have a gardening section. Plants are sold initially in spring, then once again in the autumn. Ideally plants should be removed from their pots and planted out fairly soon after purchasing providing that weather conditions are suitable. Otherwise leave the plants in their pots and keep them somewhere that is fairly sheltered, perhaps indoors, or in a cold frame until conditions have improved. Strawberries are usually sold as runners by mail order companies, often in batches of ten or twelve. However, it's often possible to buy plants individually from local suppliers. The initial cost of buying young plants can be fairly expensive, often working out at around a pound per plant. But don't let the initial layout deter you from buying some plants. If you can't afford to buy a dozen plants at once, then just buy a couple of plants to start off with. You can propagate further plants from these later. You may even know someone who already grows strawberries who could let you have a few plants to start you off, perhaps someone who has an allotment for example? Once you have obtained your initial supply of plants, then it's very easy to propagate new plants from them for very little further cost.
If possible, try to buy several different varieties in order to extend the fruiting season. (Although you may wish to buy one kind to start off with and look for other varieties later.) Bear in mind that if you buy lots of plants of one variety then you'll end up with a lot of strawberries all ripening at once! Most strawberries, including the varieties Cambridge Favourite, Alice, Sonata and Irresistible, crop sometime in June until early July. Look out for runners of Flamenco, an everbearing variety that crops from mid-July through to November and Aromel, another perpetual strawberry that crops well into the autumn. The variety Florence also crops later than the early season varieties.
General Advice
Strawberries are an easy crop to grow, requiring little in the way of attention after planting and they are generally a trouble-free crop. Young plants establish well and crop quickly, producing a good yield of tasty strawberries within a year or two of planting. Slugs can damage nearly ripe berries in wet weather, so I sometimes pick strawberries that are nearly ripe if significant rainfall is forecast and ripen them indoors overnight instead. Obviously, though they are then not so fresh and nutritious.
Propagation of New Plants
In June, after fruiting, established strawberry plants start to throw out runners. Each strawberry plant can produce several runners and these soon develop small plantlets on the end, sometimes two or three per runner. Make sure you have a good supply of small, 2"-3", plant pots handy at this time. Fill the pots either with some garden soil, a vegan potting compost mixture, or a mixture of soil and home-produced garden compost. Place each soil-containing pot on top of the mulch material next to an established strawberry plant that has produced a runner with a plantlet on the end. Press the base of the small plantlet firmly into the soil, drawing a little soil around it to anchor it firmly into position. It is a good idea to check the pots regularly and push back any plantlets that have come adrift, or you could peg the runner down initially in the pot using a bit of wire bent into a U shape. Within a month-or-two roots should start to appear out of the bottom of the pot. This shows that the plant is developing well and is ready to be severed from the parent plant. At this stage cut the runner with scissors, cutting about an inch away from the plantlet growing in the pot. The severed plants can be gathered up in their pots at this stage and planted out into a prepared bed between October and November. Alternatively, strawberry plants can be overwintered in their pots and planted out in the following spring. I usually overwinter my young plants outside on a set of garden shelving covered with a plastic cover and in a mini green house. I plant them out in late March or early April when the weather starts to improve.
July 2009
The strawberries have finished fruiting and now small plantlets are appearing on the ends of the runners. Here you can see two plantlets that I have pressed down into pots of soil. These are still attached to the parent plant by their runners.
Maintaining a Mature Bed
After fruiting remove any runners, if you don't intend to use these for propagation. It is sometimes recommended that runners are removed from first year plants, but if mine produce runners I usually propagate from them and as far as I can see this doesn't seem to have harmed the plants or reduced their vigour. It's a good idea to tidy up the bed after fruiting. This can be done either in the autumn, or left until the spring and done before the plants start growing again. Cut off any brown leaves, then give the plants a dressing of home-produced garden compost from your compost bin, a few handfuls of leafmould and a sprinkling of seaweed meal, if you have any of these items available. Water plants well in very dry spells, especially when they are fruiting and during the plants' first year when they are becoming established. A small amount of weeding may be necessary if weeds start to poke out of the gap in the mulch material around each plant.
Mail Order Suppliers
- Thompson & Morgan (Tel: 01473 695 225)
- The Organic Gardening Catalogue ( Tel: 0845 130 1304)
- Tamar Organics (Tel: 01579 371098)