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Planting strawberries in winter


(Growing Strawberries in Cold Weather)

Strawberries are a delightful treat for thousands of home gardeners every year. The sweet rush of flavor that comes after sampling the distinctive aromatic profile makes for a truly rewarding experience early in the growing season. Strawberries are one of the first fruits to be harvested in virtually every temperate region of the world, and the life cycle of the strawberry plant is uniquely suited to bearing an early crop.

Usually before spring even arrives, the strawberry plants are coaxed from their long winter’s slumber by rising temperatures and burst forth from dormancy in a fevered rush of vegetative production on their journey to setting a nice harvest of berries for the gardener who lavished care on them. But, in most areas, winter poses a real threat to the life of the little forbs.

This post will help you successfully overwinter strawberries so that YOU can enjoy that first burst of juicy strawberry fruits each and every spring.

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The Annual Life Cycle of a Strawberry Plant

In the wild, strawberry plants are perennials. They set flower buds in the fall. Then the plant needs a long period of minimal activity to use photosynthesis in lower temperatures and less intense light to build up sugars in its stems and stolons to power a burst of fruiting the next year.

In strawberry plants, dormancy doesn’t mean total inactivity. It just means that the plant is redirecting its energy to built up buds for fruiting and stolons that will reach across the ground to form daughter plants.

If a strawberry never gets the cooler and darker weather it needs to recharge and rejuvenate, it will continue to try to flower and set fruit. But it will get weaker and weaker with fewer and fewer strawberries, while the crown and roots become more and more susceptible to disease.

Many strawberry growers are fine with pulling up strawberries at the end of the growing season and planting again the next spring. But it’s a lot of work to pull up old plants, sterilize the soil or containers the plants grew in, make sure that the dead strawberry plants aren’t harboring insects or disease, and then put out new plants the next year.

There is also the added cost of new plants. But some varieties of strawberry plants are so productive that it makes sense to keep them going through the winter.

What are some good guidelines for choosing which strawberries to keep through the winter and which varieties to pull out and replant next year?

If the strawberry is day-neutral, it isn’t sensitive to the length of day, at least with regard to trying to set more and more strawberries. Day-neutral varieties like Albion, Jewel, Fort Laramie and Tristar may yield strawberries for months on end, but they only get weaker if you try to keep them through the winter for production next year.

If the strawberry bears most of its fruit in the early summer, then it is a good candidate for overwintering. These “June bearing” strawberries (depending on your climate, the peak bearing season may be as early as March or as late as July) only need winter care to rev up production all over again next year. Strawberry varieties of this type include Allstar, Chandler, Earliglow, Honeoye, and Surecrop.

We can’t list all the early-summer bearing varieties here. But chances are they were identified as such when you bought them. You can check with the grower or the nursery to be sure.
Winter care for strawberries begins in late summer.

Renovating Your Strawberry Plants

Late summer or early fall are times for “renovating” your strawberry plants. When you see that your strawberry plants aren’t producing new fruit, it’s time to prepare them for their pre-winter renovation.

The process of renovating your strawberry plant involves cutting it back to just 2 inches (5 cm) high and carrying away the trimmings. This interrupts any disease processes and deprives insects of a winter home.

If you have a small strawberry patch, or you grow your strawberries in containers, you can do the trimming with hedge clippers. If you have a large, flat field, you can use a lawn mower, but you need to make sure the blade is elevated so you leave the crown intact and you don’t take all of the foliage off the plant.

Make sure any plant debris is carried off to the compost pile. Then give your strawberry plants some late-season fertilizer.

Conventional growers can put out one pound of 10-10-10 fertilizer for every 25 plants. Scatter fertilizer pellets over the ground, rake them in gently, and water your plants (preferably with a drip, not with a sprinkler, to prevent a new round of fungal diseases).

If you are growing your strawberry plants organically, this is the time to give them aged compost and foliar mineral sprays.

Either way, fertilize in the late summer or early fall, at least a month before your expected first frost. You don’t want to stimulate tender new growth that would only get nipped by frost. You want the vines and flower buds to have a chance to mature before really cold weather sets in.
Winter care for in-ground strawberry plants

A few light frosts will just send your strawberry plants into dormancy. There is no need to race out to your garden to cover up strawberry plants for frost protection if they have already stopped blooming and bearing strawberries. (If they are still blooming, of course, a thermal blanket — not a sheet of plastic — offers adequate frost protection.)

Winter temperatures much below 15 degrees Fahrenheit (about -10 Celsius), however, will kill the flower buds that the plant needs for next year’s production. It is important to protect the flower buds from winter cold.

How to Overwinter Strawberry Plants in the Ground

Strawberries are relatively small plants, but they have a big productive capability. Due to their small size and easy adaptability, they make great ground plants and container plants. How to overwinter strawberries in containers will be discussed in the next section. Here the basics of overwintering strawberry plants in the ground will be briefly discussed. Extensive details on caring for strawberry plants can be found on the comprehensive Growing Strawberries reference page.

Overwintering strawberries in the ground is relatively simple. Strawberries are cold hardy, for the most part, and will survive mildly freezing temperatures without much problems. So, in areas with mild winters, little to no care may be required. However, in more northern (or southern for the Southern Hemisphere) regions, extra care will be required. That care takes the form of mulching.

Strawberry plants must have protection when the temperature drops into the low twenties. Once that temperature has been reached (usually in December), the plants should be in their dormant stage. At that point, it is time to overwinter them by mulching. For most regions, a mulch of straw or pine needles two or three inches thick is sufficient, but in colder regions more insulating mulch should be added. Again, more specifics about in-ground overwintering strawberries is available on the reference page mentioned above and on this page: How to Mulch Strawberry Plants for the Winter.

How to Protect the Flower Buds From Winter Cold

An important principle of cold protection is that still air is an insulator. The secret to keeping strawberries warm in the winter is thick covering or a light mulch that traps warm air inside it. Even better, this mulch would have lots of surfaces that can catch drops of moisture that release heat as they freeze.

Pine needles make a great mulch. They are easy to rake away from your strawberry plants when the weather warms up in the spring, and they keep the soil slightly acidic as they decay.

Clean, weed-free wheat, oat, or soybean straw is also a good choice. Or if you had a corn patch, chopped up corn stalks make a great choice.

Covering your plants with plastic will increase the overall temperature underneath, so long as the edges are sealed. The heat of the ground helps maintain the temperature, since the underground freezes less quickly than top soil, the air or water.

Cardboard is sturdy and may be suitable if you have a small strawberry patch or pot to cover. It will block wind and increase the temperature underneath.

It is important to let your strawberry plants harden off with a few light frosts before you add protective mulch. You don’t want lots of active growth going on underneath the mulch that could produce tender shoots that could be damaged by sudden, severe cold.
Winter care for strawberries in containers

Winter can be prime time for growing strawberry plants. You can transplant year-old plants into containers in the early fall, placing the container in a sunny but protected enclosure. The plant can set flower buds and grow roots to grow like gangbusters next spring.

How Do You Get Containerized Strawberry Plants Through the Winter?

The principle to remember for winter care of strawberry plants in containers is that shoots are hardy, but roots are delicate. Most growing containers for strawberry plants don’t provide a lot of insulation. Cold drafts can circulate around the containers. The soil or planting medium inside the container can become as cold as the ambient air surrounding it.

If a shoot dies, the plant can replace it. But if the roots die, the plant dies, too.

The key to overwintering is controlling the temperature so that the plant is cold and alive, but not actively growing.

Slow exposure to lower and lower temperatures gives the strawberry plant to make its own “antifreeze”. The stems and the roots accumulate sugars in the plant sap that keep it from freezing through.

Constantly freezing and thawing keeps the plant producing new growth that dies with the next freeze, depleting its energy so it will be weaker next spring.
Get containers ready for overwintering

Successful overwintering requires good timing. Strawberry plants should be in their pots for several weeks before they are exposed to cold. In most of the colder-winter areas of North America, this means that year-old plants need to be in pots in their winter shelter in October so they will be ready for cold coming as soon as November. The stronger the root system, the stronger the plant.

Any dead stems or leaves should be removed to prevent botrytis infections.

The strawberry plants need to be thoroughly watered when they are put in their pots and at least one more time before they are put to bed for the winter. Watering is critical because soil moisture is a source of heat. Not only does dry soil freeze much more quickly than damp soil, water releases heat as it changes from liquid water to ice.

Don’t forget rodent control. Strawberry plants make a tasty winter snack for any mice or rats that may choose to spend the winter inside your plant shelter. But what kinds of shelters do strawberry plants need?

Choosing the Shelter for Your Strawberry Plants

Thermal blankets are a great choice for maintaining strawberry plants outdoors during the coldest winter months when temperatures are constantly below freezing. Common thermoblanket materials include polyethylene foam laminated with white UV-resistant polyethylene film (for instance, The Winter Blanket), flexible polypropylene foam (Microfoam), and closed cell polyethylene foam (Guilbond). There are also fleece plant blankets that keep plants warm even in severe cold. Blankets should be oriented north-south so they are not lifted by strong northerly winds. The edges should be weighted down. When thermal blankets are removed in the early spring, they should be stored indoors so they will last another two or three years. In locations where temperatures fall below -10 degrees Fahrenheit (about -25 degrees Celsius), plants should be covered with two layers of blankets.

For even more thermal protection, cover plants with a layer of plastic, a layer of straw, and another layer of plastic. First, build an inexpensive frame of wood or mesh wire to cover the area where the strawberry plant containers have been placed. The cover the frame and the plants with a sheet of inexpensive clear plastic. Cover the first layer of plastic with 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm) of dry straw, and then cover the straw with another layer of white plastic. This protects your strawberry plants against both extreme cold and thawing.

Yet another way to keep strawberry plants at a constant temperature below freezing is inside an unheated quonset polyhouse. Strawberry plants in their containers are placed on a flat, dry, well-drained surface. A quonset hut frame is built from PVC pipe. At temperatures you are likely to encounter in the fall, PVC pipe is flexible so it can be bent into hoops and attached to a frame built around the plants.

The quonset frame is covered with one or two layers of polyethylene. If you use two layers of polyethylene, leave some air space between them for extra insulation. Once outdoor temperatures fall below 25 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit (-4 to -1 degrees Celsius), the plants inside the frame can be covered with a thermal blanket to prevent further freezing and to protect next year’s fruiting buds. This kind of protection is adequate down to about – 5 degrees Fahrenheit (-20 degrees Celsius). It’s important to remove the thermal blanket from the plants during warmups to keep moisture from accumulating on the plants.

During periods of warmer weather, use a soil thermometer to check the temperature of the pots. If soil temperature is consistently above 40 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius), remove the thermal blanket. On the other hand, if the soil temperature falls to 15 degrees Fahrenheit (about -10 degrees Celsius), then you will need to place a heater inside the hut.
Let your strawberry plants warm up gradually in the spring

As long as there is still a risk of cold weather, you don’t want your strawberry plants putting on heavy new growth. Make sure they start growing slowly in early spring by gradually removing cover in February and March, leaving them some cold protection in early April before returning them to growing season conditions in May. As plants are putting on new foliage, check them frequently for fungal infections and treat as needed.

Watering Overwintered Strawberries

Just as with storing bare-root strawberry plants, your overwintered strawberries still have to have appropriate water. Totally dry soil means dead plants. Too much moisture can also be fatal. During the cold temperatures and while the plant is dormant, only minimal water is needed.

For outdoor, in-ground, and mulched overwintering strawberry plants, the natural precipitation should appropriately maintain sufficient soil moisture. For the container plants, however, water will have to be provided. The easiest way to provide appropriate water is to collect snow from outside and throw a handful or two on top of the soil. The slightly warmer temperatures in the garage should slowly melt the snow allowing a more natural seepage into the container soil. Doing this periodically (about once a month) should sufficiently moisten the soil and allow the plants to thrive again come spring.

Benefits of Overwintering Strawberries

There are numerous benefits to be had by overwintering strawberries. Here are some of them:

Overwintering Strawberry Plants Is Natural

Strawberry plants have a dormant phase for a reason. It increases their life span! Strawberry plants can be kept inside at warmer temperatures all year round, but this essentially causes the plants to never “sleep” and drastically reduces the overall life span of the plant.

Overwintering Strawberries Maximizes Production

Strawberry plants are perennial by nature. Letting them go dormant during the winter as nature would have it allows for maximal production from each plant. Since strawberry flowers should be pinched during year one for spring plantings, the second, third, fourth, and even sometimes fifth years are where production really comes on strong. Protecting dormant plants during the winter yields much more production following.

Overwinter Strawberries to Save Money

If you overwinter strawberry plants successfully, you don’t have to buy them again the following year. And, since they’ll live longer, you don’t have to replenish them as often either. Plus, since overwintered strawberry plants are more productive than plants that are never allowed to go dormant, you get to eat more of your own strawberries; and that means you’ll be saving money by not buying strawberries at the grocery store or farmers market.

It Is Fun to Overwinter Strawberry Plants

And, lastly, it is just plain fun to overwinter strawberries! They don’t suffer cold injury, and it brings a true green thumb at least a modicum of satisfaction knowing that his plants are kindly looked after. So, save yourself the work of replanting new plants each year and overwinter strawberries henceforth.

How to Overwinter Hydroponic Strawberry Plants

Bradford Nick asked:

I have my strawberries outdoors in hydroponics. Summer has ended and we’ve had several killing frosts, but the seascape strawberries are still growing and flowering. My plan is to keep the strawberries in their hydroponic net pots, and to overwinter these pots with the roots hanging out, in a box of sand in the garage. I have a lot of runners I never trimmed. My question is, next year, will I get better production from the mother plants, or from the runners? Will unrooted runners survive 5 months in cold sand?

Answer to: Overwintering Hydroponic Strawberry Plants?

Bradford Nick,
Let me start off with a few quick comments before answering your question, as other readers may benefit from the information. So, strawberry plants are much more cold-tolerant than many other popular garden plants. Once a good frost hits, most tomatoes, melons, and just about everything else is going to bite the dust. Strawberries, however, are more resilient. While any flowers in full bloom will likely end up damaged or dead, a few mild nights aren’t enough to make the plants go dormant, much less kill them (as you’ve experienced!). Even frosts don’t put the kibosh on the hardy little fellows. Once the temperatures drop down into the low twenties or upper teens, depending on the varieties you have planted, they will go dormant. It isn’t until they go dormant (i.e. look dead). That they should be moved into your planned overwintering hydroponic strawberry plants area. So, fret not. Your plants will go dormant at some point as the temperatures decline. When they do, you can then overwinter them.

As far as production goes, you should get better production from the older plants for about two years. The root systems are larger, and the plants more capable of producing fruit. After two years, however, the older plants will likely start to decline in vigor. While healthy plants can continue to produce well up to age 4, they often begin to decline before then. So, to be on the safe side, you should switch out plants no later than year 3 for younger specimens.

Overwintering hydroponic strawberry plants is more difficult than overwintering traditionally-grown plants due to their exposure. Water isn’t a good insulator and will freeze solid in cold temperatures. Your plan of overwintering hydroponic strawberry plants in sand can work. If you keep the strawberries in their hydroponic net pots and overwinter these pots with the roots hanging out, you can successfully keep them alive in a box of sand in the garage. You do, however, need to make sure that the roots are completely covered in the sand, and that the sand doesn’t dry out. As long as the sand remains damp and your temperature doesn’t reach arctic cold levels in your garage, they should make it. Also, make sure you use sterile sand when you are overwintering hydroponic strawberry plants. Otherwise, you can have all sorts of pathogens in it that may transfer to and kill your plants during their stay in the Hotel Silica.

What If You Only Have to Deal With Occasional Outbreaks of Cold Weather?

If really cold weather isn’t common at your location, you may want to maintain your strawberry plants in containers that are constantly thawed rather than constantly frozen. Heated greenhouse with roll-up sides give you the ability to keep plants from freezing all winter, but also to keep them from growing too quickly by opening the sides of the greenhouse when temperatures are cool but not cold. The objective in this setup is to keep plants at 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) or less until spring.

A heated greenhouse with roll-up sides gives you the ability to gradually introduce your plants to warmer weather and to keep them from accumulating moisture that attracts fungal diseases.

What Can You Do If Your Strawberry has Frosted?

If your strawberry patch got a little too cold and may have damage as a result, it’s time to take emergency measures to save them. While many plants are hardy enough to survive, it’s important to warm them up.

For cold-shocked plants, one of the best things you can do, is to water them. Water helps plants recover from stress and the trauma of the cold snap. When watering, apply around an inch of new water to your garden. It’s even better if you can water with lukewarm water, as it will help thaw the soil if it’s still frozen or extremely cool.

Why does water work? When plants are frozen, the water within them is removed. Without that moisture, they are dehydrated. Rehydrate your plants, and you should see them perk back up.

Another important step is to make sure not to prune a plant that has been cold shocked. Pruning can stress a plant, so wait until your plant begins to grow to assess which parts may have died and if you need to prune anything at all. Until then, you can remove dead leaves and dried leaves from the plant, since they are no longer supporting photosynthesis.

What About Cold Weather Growing for Strawberry Plants in Towers?

Strawberry towers are designed for single-season growth. There is too much surface area exposed to cold air to make overwintering practical, unless you live in an exceptionally warm-winter climate.

But What If I Want Fresh Strawberries All Winter Long?

We have written about greenhouse production of strawberries. But if you just want a few strawberries, you can grow your strawberry plants in a cold frame.

Overwintering Strawberries: Conclusion

Hopefully, you are now equipped whether you needed to know how to overwinter strawberries in containers or how to overwinter strawberry plants in the ground. Following the advice on this page and elsewhere on this site will help keep your plants productive year after year. So, have fun, save money, and maximize your harvest! And, if you have any strawberry-related questions, feel free to leave a comment. Good luck!

Learn more:
Fall Strawberry Plants
Strawberry Plants and Cold Injury
Winterizing Strawberry Plants

Learn everything about growing strawberries from the Strawberry Master Manual, also don't forget to follow me on Pinterest and Facebook to stay updated with everything I post. We also have a Strawberry gardening group on Facebook! Feel free to join.

Winterizing Strawberry Plants – Strawberry Plants

Winterizing strawberry plants is necessary for gardeners in many areas. As the temperatures drop each year, people write in asking when and how to winterize strawberry plants. This post will cover the basics and help you determine how and when to protect your strawberry plants as the weather cools.

Jump to:

Why Winterize Strawberries?

Strawberry plants are perennial. They produce for many years after the initial planting, and they can thrive for very long periods if a rotation is used to keep plants fresh. But, there is a problem with perennial plants. How do they survive the freezing temperatures of the winter months? Well, strawberries are classified as forbs. Consequently, they don’t have the thick bark that protects many other perennials like most trees. If they don’t get extra protection (at least in the colder Zones), they will either die or suffer cold injury. Both death and injury can significantly hamper your plants’ ability to grow strawberries for you!

Simply put, you need to winterize strawberries to keep them alive and well.

When Is the Right Time to Winterize Strawberry Plants?

Strawberry plants should be winterized when they have entered dormancy and the temperature threatens to get cold enough to damage them. The time when strawberry plants go dormant varies. It depends upon the temperature and daylight in your location. As the days shorten in the fall, strawberry plants begin to march toward dormancy. Yet, it isn’t until the temperatures drop well below freezing for several nights in a row that the plants will actually begin their slumber.

For USDA Hardiness Zones 5 or lower (4, 3, etc.), plants will often enter dormancy by the end of November. For Zones 6 through 8, the plants will usually go dormant in December. You know the plants have gone dormant when you have a combination of cold temperatures and plants with dead-looking, wilted vegetation. If winterizing strawberry plants in mild winters, they will often live without any mulch or special winter care in Zones 7 and higher (8, 9).

How to Winterize Strawberry Plants in the Ground

First, ensure that the plants are truly dormant by checking the crowns to make certain there is no active new growth growing. Then, gently remove all the dead and wilted leaflets by carefully raking them out of your strawberry patch. Next, clear any accumulated leaves or debris from the strawberry beds. Finally, place a thick layer of a suitable mulch over the strawberry plants. The lower your USDA Hardiness Zone, the higher you need to pile the mulch. Any material that allows water to drain and air to circulate is an acceptable mulch. The most common, of course, is clean straw. Pine needles is also a good choice. Hay can be used, but it isn’t the best option. Hay almost always has loads of grass seeds and other weed seeds that will find a happy home alongside your strawberries making much more work for you when spring comes. Mulches that compact tightly or do not allow airflow are not appropriate for winterizing strawberry plants. Leaves, for example, will trap moisture. Wet, clumpy mulches will harbor pathogenic fungi and bacteria that can damage or kill or your strawberry plants, if they aren’t suffocated outright by a compressed mulch mat.

How to Winterize Potted Strawberry Plants

Potted strawberry plants are a little bit more difficult to care for because they are a little bit more vulnerable than in-ground plants. The soil in pots is quicker to freeze than the better-insulated soil of Terra Firma. Winterizing strawberry plants in containers can be done several ways, depending on how much effort you wish to expend.

Winterize Potted Strawberries in the Ground

If the ground isn’t already frozen when you decide to prepare your plants for winter (it should not be!), you can overwinter your strawberry plants in the ground. If you have a spare area, simply dig pot-sized holes and place the pots containing your dormant strawberry plants in them. Pack the dirt down around the sides of the pot tightly to simulate a natural planting and provide insulation. Then, mulch them just like you would if they were actually in-ground plantings. In the spring after the danger of cold injury has past, pull the pots up, wipe them off, and re-place or re-hang them in their designated places. If this method is too much work or is impossible…

Use Ambient Heat to Protect Potted Strawberry Plants

If your home is situated so that it has a side sheltered from the harshest winter weather, utilize it to help protect your strawberries. Homes are not perfectly insulated. If you heat your home, a lot of that heat is going to be lost through the walls during the winter. Placing your strawberry plants in containers along the wall of your home on the most sheltered side can keep them happy all winter in milder Zones. It is a good idea to mulch these plants as well. This is one of the easier ways to go about winterizing strawberry plants in pots!

Overwinter Strawberry Plants in the Garage

If you have an unheated garage, you can winterize strawberry plants in it as well. You typically don’t have to mulch them in a garage, but you do want to have them against an inner wall (to utilize the ambient heat) if you live in very cold locations. If you don’t, it can actually be best to keep them by an outer, unheated wall as long as the temperature inside the garage doesn’t get much below the upper 20s.

Strawberry plants require water over the winter, however. So, be sure to check the soil moisture levels. If the soil drys completely out, the plants will die. If the soil stays soggy, they will probably die as well. Water just enough each week to keep the soil slightly damp. An easy way to achieve an appropriate level of moisture is to place a handful of snow (if available) on each potted strawberry plant once a week. The snow gradually melts and keeps the soil moist, but not soggy.

Winterizing Strawberry Plants in Non-Standard Containers

Most people plant strawberries in pots. But, lots of people use other methods as well. Strawberry pyramids and tires and cinder block plantings can generally be treated like plants in the ground (just mulch a bit extra due to the greater surface area exposed to wind). Overwintering strawberry towers or winterizing strawberry plants planted in gutters or pipe systems is more difficult. If the strawberry towers or gutters/pipes can be moved into the garage or other similar shelter, they will often do better than if left suspended above the ground and exposed to all the harshest weather winter can throw at them. If that isn’t possible, one option is to wrap the containers in an insulating-yet-breathable material (like burlap) after dormancy has arrived. Several layers will need to be applied to offer sufficient protection, so it is also necessary to check the soil to ensure it remains moist. That may involve unwrapping and re-wrapping several times during the winter (which is a frozen pain in the fingers). But, if you live in colder Zones, it has to be done if you want happy and productive plants in the spring.

Winterizing Strawberries: Conclusion

Regardless of how you accomplish the task, most people will have to protect their strawberries in some way over the winter months. Cold injury is particularly problematic for strawberry plants since they produce fruit by means of perennating buds. In short, the flowers that become strawberries aren’t formed in the spring. They get their start during the waning warm days of the previous year in the form of flower buds in the crown of the strawberry plant. If strawberry plants have poor care or nutrition during the end of August, September, and October, they won’t form many buds. If the plants suffer cold injury, the buds are be damaged. When the buds are damaged by the winter weather, no flowers are produced when spring rolls around. And everyone knows that no flowers means no strawberries.

So, pay attention to your plants in the fall. And, protect them through the winter by appropriately winterizing strawberry plants. Then, when spring arrives, you’ll be harvesting heaps of delightful and delicious strawberries! If you want to see more, follow up with: Strawberry Flowers and Overwintering Strawberries. Good luck!

Learn more:
Growing Strawberries in Cold Weather
Fall Strawberry Plants
Strawberry Plants and Cold Injury

Learn everything about growing strawberries from the Strawberry Master Manual, also don't forget to follow me on Pinterest and Facebook to stay updated with everything I post. We also have a Strawberry gardening group on Facebook! Feel free to join.

highlights and variety selection

Posted by Yuki | Comments: 0

Probably every person has tasted strawberries. Many summer residents grow this berry on their plots. Often they harvest only once. This delicious delicacy encourages gardeners to build a greenhouse to get fruits even in cold weather. But is it possible to grow strawberries in winter?

Content:

Is it possible to grow strawberries in winter?

A huge number of summer residents dream of strawberries that will bear fruit throughout the year. For this, a greenhouse can serve. With its help, you can get juicy and tasty berries. And some people in this way are engaged in small business, as they sell their crops. Everyone has their own rationale for growing strawberries in the winter. Do not forget that this is not an easy process. For him, you need to choose the appropriate variety. To get a quality crop, you must adhere to certain conditions.

Maintain a certain temperature. When the strawberries are planted, the temperature should be around 12 degrees. When the bushes develop, then it should rise to 20 degrees. When inflorescences appear, the greenhouse should be warm.

The ideal temperature for this is 24 degrees. It should not go down, but an increase will have a bad effect on strawberries. If it is cold in the greenhouse, then the berries will not set, and foliage will begin to grow in a hot room. Maintaining the light regime. There are varieties of strawberries that react neutrally to light, but they also need to be provided with good lighting, as they will not develop normally in a dark room. If the light regime is maintained, then berries will form faster. If normal lighting is for 16 hours, then strawberries will appear after 35 days.

Irrig. Water the strawberries so that the flowers and foliage do not touch. Providing normal humidity. Strawberries like the air to be quite humid. Trouble with pollination. If varieties of the old selection were chosen, then they need to be pollinated manually. But there are new species that are able to self-pollinate. In the first case, you should make a lot of effort. To do this, you need to pollinate the flowers using a brush, or shake them. After all, only in a large greenhouse can one be allowed to build a beehive so that natural pollination occurs. Fertilizers. When strawberries are grown in winter, more fertilizers need to be applied, as well as pesticides. Especially often slugs attack the plant, as high humidity is maintained in the room.

Selection of variety

Before you start growing strawberries in greenhouse conditions, you need to choose the right variety. It is very important. In this case, you need to pay attention not only to the method of pollination of berries. The gardener should take into account the following nuances:

The size of the future crop depends on these factors. You should also ask how unpretentious the strawberry variety is, whether it needs long-term lighting. All these subtleties need to be known. The more of them, the harder it is to care for strawberries in order to get a good harvest. There are quite capricious hybrid varieties for which it is necessary to build a complex ventilation system and other details. This will require a considerable amount of money. Therefore, you first need to find out information about the variety, and then proceed to planting strawberries. The maturation time is also important. And some varieties are able to develop only in the south.

Video about growing strawberries in winter:

It is worth remembering that pollination of berries is important for many varieties of strawberries. If a large greenhouse has been built, then some people set up a beehive in it. Otherwise it is necessary to carry out pollination by hand if the strawberries do not do it themselves. This complicates the care of strawberries.

Benefits of growing indoors

Many people decide to grow strawberries in a greenhouse. This method has many advantages:

  1. Delicious berries can be enjoyed throughout the year. Often, gardeners grow such fruits for sale.
  2. Can save space. Bushes in closed ground are placed compactly, so the entire area is used to good use.
  3. Strawberries are insured against bad weather all year round. Hail, scorching sun rays, cold rain, frost will not be able to affect the development of the plant.
  4. More crops can be harvested. When growing in open ground, then some of the berries die before ripening.
  5. Care is much easier in the greenhouse, regardless of the variety chosen for planting.

Cultivation tips

To begin with, prepare the soil before planting. To do this, organic fertilizers or peat are applied to the ground. Often, mustaches are first grown in open ground, which are used for planting. You can also purchase planting material, which is much more profitable. Adhering to the temperature regime, you can start planting strawberries. Experienced gardeners are advised to place bushes with an earthy clod in a permanent place. You can also mulch the soil with sawdust. This will affect the growth of healthy berries.

Strawberries need constant watering, but don't overdo it. If there is a lot of moisture, then the taste of the berries will deteriorate. Strawberries grow watery. Also, excess water can provoke the process of decay. Strawberries need to be fed throughout the year. When it blooms, one must not forget about the pollination process. If you take the process of growing strawberries seriously, follow the rules, then it will delight with its fruits both in autumn and in winter. You also need to properly build a greenhouse. You can do this process yourself or contact companies that specialize in this design.

Greenhouses must have small windows. With their help, it will be possible to carry out ventilation, which is very important for the development of strawberries. When the weather is warm outside, then you can open the doors. But in winter, cold air can adversely affect the plant. But the simplest ventilation system should be. So, many people love strawberries. Gardeners put a lot of effort into growing it. To harvest in the winter, you should build a greenhouse and follow simple growing rules.

How to grow strawberries in pots at home in winter

Strawberries are one of the favorite delicacies not only for children, but also for adults. Many gardeners quite often grow it in their yard or in a greenhouse. But there are also craftsmen who have adapted to grow strawberries in a pot at home on the window in the winter season. How to do this, and will be discussed today.

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