Who doesn’t love delicious fresh strawberries? Fortunately they are easy to grow, as you will see from these tips for growing strawberries. A good source of vitamin C, strawberries can bear you a crop the first year you plant them, and they are perennial, so you’ll get a crop next year, too.
Basically, you have your choice of June-bearing and everbearing berries. The June berries tend to put out more berries, but they all come at the same time of year. For more tips for growing strawberries, read on.
Strawberries can actually be planted any time you can find the plants available. They can be purchased as bare root plants, often sold in a package of six or twelve. Alternatively, they can be purchased in four inch pots. These tips for growing strawberries apply to either type of plants. It doesn’t matter what part of the country you live in – there’s bound to be a strawberry variety that suits your climate.
Hanging Fruit Gardens
Another of the little known tips for growing strawberries is that you can plant them in strawberry pots or hanging baskets if you just want an occasional taste of fresh homegrown fruit, or if you don’t have much space. A strawberry pot has an opening at the top for the mother plant, and has openings on the side where baby plants can take root. Strawberries put out runners with new plants, somewhat similar to the familiar houseplant called the spider plant.
In the garden, strawberries can be planted in rows. Here are tips for growing strawberries in rows. Use composted organic matter, including manure, to amend your soil. If your ground doesn’t have good drainage, it helps to raise the rows or beds by about eight inches. Bare root plants should have the roots trimmed back to six inches. The roots should then be soaked in water for half an hour before planting the strawberries.
Here are more tips for growing strawberries in the field. If you plant them in a diamond pattern, you can get more plants in a wide row of two or two and a half feet wide. Be sure to leave a path between the wide rows so you have a place to stand while accessing the berry plants. When you plant them, the roots should be spread out, and the crown of the plant pointing up. The crown should just show above the soil.
Mulches fall under the category of tips for growing strawberries, too. For many people, black plastic makes a great ground cover under the berry plants. To use it, first place it on the ground and make holes in it. Plant the berry plants in the holes. Straw can be placed on top of the plastic to hold it down and keep it from getting too hot underneath. Water the plants well, and the plastic should help to hold moisture in the soil.
Another of the tips for growing strawberries is that you may need to cover your plants with netting to keep birds away from them. As for fertilizer, using 10-10-10 in the early spring, and again after you pick the main crop of berries. A suitable rate of fertilizer is two pounds for each hundred square feet of strawberry bed. You could also opt to give each individual plant a side dressing of a tablespoon of fertilizer. Follow these tips for a lush crop of delicious strawberries.