experience on growing strawberrys

kizzycat20171993

Hi,

i want to plant some strawberrys but i don't have much knowledge about how to do it. For example is there a type of strawberry that i can buy for this time of year and how many should i get?

If it helps, my veg patch is 1m by 1m, it's also in the letter "L" shape

Womble54

Strawberries are pretty easy to grow. Can go in the ground, containers or hanging baskets. Its not too late to plant then. A mid or late cropping variety would probably be better to plant now. I'm sure they'll have lots in the garden centres.

Just dig in some compost or manure plus some granular fertiliser. Plant them out about 12 inches apart. Put some straw or other mulch under them to stop the fruit touching the ground. Keep them well watered and feed with a tomato feed every couple of weeks once the fruit are starting to swell.

They will put out runners. For the first year I've heard its best to cut these off. Second year you can keep the runners, either directly in the bed or in pots. These can then replace the original plants as they start to stop producing fruit after their third or fourth year.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/grow-your-own/fruit/strawberries

Good luck and hope you get lots of summer strawbs!

kizzycat20171993

thanks

widgetwilk ann

Cover with small hole netting or curtain or birds will have them,

GardenAmateur

I tried unsuccessfully to grow strawberries from seed so gave up and bought  them 2 years ago,  from garden centre , now I am getting over run with them! So much so that this year  I will be cutting off most if not all runners. They don't need much care I occasionally cut off dead bits but that's it. If you plant the runners this year next year you will be able to force some indoors so you will get earlier berries

wild edges

It can be worth a 'wanted' advert on freecycle as gardeners often have plenty of strawberry plants to give away. Like @GardenAmateur said you will soon be overun with them yourself. Don't overlook the alpine varieties too as they crop throughout the year. The berries are tiny but are amazingly tasty.

mrtjforman

I have found strawberries to be quite tricky tbh. I find the ones in the garden centre look great when you buy them but then flop once planted in our UK climate. I suspect they are imported from spain. So first year is spent getting them acclimatised to our climate. If they survive till next year then they will produce an abundance of runners which you use to make more plants. After a few years you will be overrun by them.

I did learn the hard way that multi purpose compost is no good for strawberries, it needs to be john innes or even better a home made soil rich in organic matter.
If you want good strawberries you just cannot beat making your own compost for them. It's more important for them than any other fruit imo.

They also like a lot of sun, too little sun and they won't produce much fruit.

What makes them so challenging for me is the fact that they grow so low to the ground so the fruit is in perfect reach for all the slugs and snails and by the time it comes to harvesting the fruit is mostly eaten.

So this year I have gone for raised beds and raised pots.

mrtjforman

ps: my favourite is the cambridge favourite. All round great producer and old time favourite for flavour. Alpine varieties are ok but the fruit is 10 times smaller which is a bit unsatisfying after a while so good for a corner addition.

Womble54

I’ve grown mine in a bin. It’s easy to throw netting over to stop the birds. They’re a mix of Cambridge, honeoye and marshmello. Flowering nicely and fruit starting to form.

GardenAmateur

Wow @Womble54 they look amazing. 

Womble54

Thanks. I’m surprised how well they’re doing considering it’s not been that warm.