Planting, Growing, and Harvesting Strawberries
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Planting
Strawberry plants require 6 to 10 hours of direct sunlight a day, so choose a sunny spot. Otherwise, strawberries are tolerant of different soil types, although they prefer loamy soil that drains well.
Preparing the Soil for Strawberries
To ensure a strong start, add a few buckets of well-rotted manure before planting; you could also use garden compost. If you have clay soil, generally mix in 4 inches or more of compost and rake the clay soil into raised mounds to further improve drainage. If your soil is sandy, simply cultivate lightly to remove weeds and mix in a 1-inch layer of rich compost or rotted manure.
Soil pH should be between 5.5 and 7. If necessary, amend your soil before planting. If soils in your area are naturally alkaline, it is best to grow strawberries in half-barrels or other large containers filled with compost-enriched potting soil. Raised beds are a particularly good option for strawberry plants.
Practice crop rotation for the most success. Unless you plan to amend your soil each year, do not plant in a site that recently had tomatoes, peppers, or eggplant.
Also, note that strawberries and garlic are good planting companions if you wish to interplant. Garlic helps deter pests like spider mites.
When to Plant Strawberries
- Plan to plant when the ground can be worked in the spring. See your local frost dates.
- Establish new plants each year to maintain high berry quality each season. Strawberry plants will produce runners (daughter plants) that root and grow into new strawberry plants.
- Buy disease-resistant plants from a reputable nursery, of a variety that is recommended in your area. You can consult with the nursery you buy them from or with your state Cooperative Extension service for locally recommended varieties.
- You can buy strawberries in pots, but also you can sometimes find bare-root strawberries or runners, which offer really excellent value for money. They look fairly shocking, without any leaves and rather scraggly, but don’t let that put you off. Once they hit the soil, they’ll be well away!
How to Plant Strawberries
- Provide adequate space for sprawling. Allow for spacing of around 18 inches (1-1/2 feet) to leave room for runners and leave 4 feet between rows. Strawberries are sprawling plants. Seedlings will send out runners, which, in turn, will send out their own runners. (Container strawberries can be planted closer together.)
- Plant holes should be deep and wide enough to accommodate the entire root system without bending it. However, don’t plant too deep! The roots should be covered, but the crown should be right at the soil surface. It is very important that you do NOT bury the crown (central growing bud) of the plant, or it could rot. The leaves, flowers, and fruit must be exposed to light and fresh air.
- To settle their roots into the soil, water plants well at the time of planting.
- Use a mulch of the strawberry’s namesake – straw!
- It is also possible to grow strawberries from last year’s runners. See this video to find out how.
Planting Strawberries in Containers
Potted strawberries are easy to get right. They go in at the same depth as the potting mix in the container, but for bare-rooted plants, make sure you don’t go too deep or too shallow. If too deep, the plant may struggle and could potentially rot away. If it is too shallow, it will rock about and dry out really easily, creating a weak and brittle plant. You want the crown of the plant where the stems of the leaves emerge to be ever so slightly proud of the soil surface. Learn more about growing strawberries in pots.
Watch this video to see how to plant strawberries in garden beds or containers.
Growing
How to Grow Strawberries
- The big tip with strawberries is to keep them well watered while they are establishing their roots and during dry weather. Moisture is incredibly important due to its shallow roots. Water adequately, about one inch per square foot per week. Strawberry plants need a lot of water when the runners and flowers are developing and again in the late summer when the plants are fully mature and gearing up for winter dormancy.
- Keep strawberry beds mulched to reduce water needs and weed invasion. Any type of mulch—from black plastic to pine straw to shredded leaves—will keep the soil moist and the plants clean. Read more about mulching.
- Be diligent about weeding—weed by hand, especially in the first months after planting.
- Once strawberries flower, fertilize them with a high-potassium, liquid tomato feed to encourage good fruit production. Plants also benefit from the addition of an organic, general-purpose fertilizer early in spring, as they set into growth, to help power things up for the new season.
- In the first year, pick off blossoms to discourage strawberry plants from fruiting. If not allowed to bear fruit, they will spend their food reserves on developing healthy roots instead, which is a good thing. The yields will be much greater in the second year.
- Eliminate runner plants as needed. First and second generations produce higher yields. Try to keep daughter plants spaced about 10 inches apart.
- Row covers are a good option for protecting blossoms and fruit from birds.
Winter Care of Strawberries
Strawberry plants are perennial. They are naturally cold-hardy and will survive mildly freezing temperatures. So, if your area has mild winters, little care is needed.
In regions where the temperature regularly drops into the low twenties (Fahrenheit), strawberries will be in their dormant stage. It’s best to provide some winter protection:
- When the growing season is over, mow or cut foliage down to one inch. This can be done after the first couple of frosts or when air temps reach 20°F (-6°C).
- Mulch plants about 4 inches deep with straw, pine needles, or other organic material.
- In even colder regions, more insulating mulch should be added.
- Natural precipitation should appropriately maintain sufficient soil moisture.
- Remove mulch in early spring after the danger of frost has passed.
How to Propagate Strawberries
Strawberries produce long, wiry stems called runners with little plantlets along them. You can use these to grow more strawberries by just pinning the plantlets down to the root and then severing them from the mother plant once they have. See our article for details on how to grow more strawberries!
Harvesting
How to Harvest Strawberries
- When you grow your own, you can peak at the peak of ripeness. No more white strawberries! Harvest only fully red (ripe) berries, and pick every three days.
- Fruit is typically ready for harvesting 4 to 6 weeks after blossoming.
- Ideally, pick fruits in the warmth of the afternoon for maximum flavor.
- Cut by the stem; do not pull the berry, or you could damage the plant.
- For June-bearer strawberries, the harvest will last up to 3 weeks. Depending on the variety, you should have an abundance of berries.
How to Store Strawberries
- Store unwashed berries in the refrigerator for 3 to 5 days.
- Strawberries can be frozen whole for about 2 months.
- Dehydrate them or turn them into delicious jams. Learn how to Make Strawberry Preserves!
Catherine Boeckmann
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Katrina, remember one thing: You can’t fool Mother Nature (or her critters). Try netting on your berries; a lot of people use that to deter the birds and squirrels and, for the record, bunnies. And set up a pinwheel or other moving object of that sort. Think aluminum pie plates on a string, glittery dangling Christmas ornaments—even large scarecrows. (Situations like this is why people have been using scarecrows for centuries.) Be aware, however, that you might need a few such objects that you set up and move around; the critters realize pretty quickly that these are inanimate and pose no threat. You might scatter red pepper around … but you don’t want that on the berries you eat. Another idea is to have a radio playing, especially tuned to a talk show; this has been known to deter some critters. All of these—and similar—ideas usually work … for a while. It’s a challenge we all face.
should this be done after they have finished producing or in the fall?
If you have June-bearing strawberries, you mow off the leaves right after harvest. Mow 1 inch above the crowns of the plants with a rotary mower. Then rake up the plant debris. After you mow, narrow the strawberry rows to 8-inch-wide strips. If your strawberry bed is a solid mat of plants, create strips that are 8 inches wide. Keep the younger plants and get rid of the old plants. Space the strips about 2 or 3 feet apart. Then apply fertilizer. Mulch in the late fall once the ground is already cold, and then remove mulch in late April.
I have lemon balm growing in my strawberry patch. Should I remove it or let it grow with the strawberries? I have a great 2nd year crop, and want to continue such yields.
Lemon balm and strawberries can happily co-exist in the same bed. No worries there.
I would like to build a raised bed for strawberries. I would like to make the raised bed 6 feet wide and 20 feet long. My plan is to plant three rows of strawberries with each plant being 2 feet apart, using the matted row approach. Starting in three years I would remove plants from one third of the raised bed each year, allowing the strawberries to spread back into the newly cleared row. My thought is that with this approach I would be able to continually remove old plants, not have to purchase new plants and have strawberries to pick from two-thirds of the raised bed each year. Any thoughts on this approach or recommendations?
To grow strawberries, the matted row technique is tried and tested, and should work well. In the first year after planting, remove any runners to give the plants time to establish.
I just bought a strawberry plant in a pot but ready to put it in the ground. The best place to put it at my house also has other plants planted. is this okay or should I pick a diffrent spot? Thanks in advance!
Strawberries can be planted in a bed mixed with other plants, as long as they have room and full sun. If space is limited, you’ll need to remove any (or at least, most) runners that develop; depending on variety, strawberries can be invasive and crowd out other plants if not kept in check (by removing runners). In a vegetable bed, strawberries do not do well with members of the cabbage family (cabbage, broccoli, etc.), but enjoy beans, lettuce, spinach, and onion as neighbors, as well as some herbs such as borage or caraway. Strawberries are susceptible to verticillium fungus—you might want to avoid planting it near other vegetables that are susceptible, such as tomatoes.
I have tried growing strawberries from seed several times, but have not even produced a plant, what can I do?
