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Strawberry plants when to plant


Growing Strawberries and Strawberry Varieties

How do you grow the best-tasting strawberries? We’ll share our planting and growing tips. Let’s start with the best strawberry varieties.

Garden strawberries are typically much sweeter and juicier than what you can find in the grocery store because the sugar in the berries converts to sugar after the berries are removed from the plant.

Strawberries are also perennials, so they’ll come back year after year!  Plus, they will grow easily in a traditional garden bed, in containers, or even as a border crop.

Choosing Strawberry Varieties

Strawberries are best planted in the spring, as early as several weeks before the last frost date. By selecting a range of strawberry varieties you can spread your harvest from late spring through to early fall. Look for varieties described as ‘early-season’ to start, then choose a mid-season type, followed by a late-season strawberry.

June-bearing Strawberries

The most common variety of strawberries is called June-bearing because the fruit crops during the weeks of June (or early July) in most regions. The harvest generally lasts several weeks.

Everbearing Strawberries

For smaller quantities of strawberries produced over a long period (from spring to autumn), you could choose ‘everbearing’ varieties, also known as day-neutral or perpetual strawberries.

Everbearing strawberries are smaller, but can produce a few harvests each season. They are excellent for making preserves.

Alpine Strawberries

Alpine strawberries have tiny fruits that have a very intense strawberry taste. They don’t fruit heavily, but they can be allowed to grow between ornamentals and will naturally self-seed to create a useful edible ground cover.

Our Garden Planner can help you choose the best strawberry varieties to grow. Double-click on the strawberry icon to view the Varieties box and then scroll down the drop-down list to select a variety, or click the + button and hover over the information buttons for catalog descriptions. You even customize your own variety with its own spacing and dates.

Planting Strawberries

Strawberries will tolerate a partially shaded position, but grow them in a sunny spot for the best harvests. Add plenty of organic matter, such as well-rotted compost, before planting. Plant your strawberries so that the base of the crown (where the leaves emerge) is at soil level. Space them 18 to 24 inches apart in both directions.

Growing your strawberries in containers keeps the fruit off the ground where they are less likely to be nibbled by slugs. Fill the pots with rich potting soil and you can plant the strawberries a little closer together. Containers can dry out quickly, so pay close attention to watering.

To encourage a harvest of strawberries up to three weeks earlier than normal, cover early varieties with a cloche or row cover from the end of winter. When the plants are flowering, remove the covers on warm days to let insect pollinators in.

Growing Strawberries

Use special strawberry mats to prevent dirt from splashing onto the developing fruits, or use an organic mulch such as straw.

Keep plants weeded and well watered. Water on an organic liquid fertilizer that’s high in potassium (such as comfrey tea or a tomato fertilizer) every two weeks from when the first flowers appear until they’ve finished fruiting.

In the first year remove any runners (long trailing stems) that appear. From the second year, you can leave a few runners to grow them on into new plants.

Keep slug numbers down using beer traps, and net the fruits against birds. Make sure to tuck netting in at the edges to prevent birds becoming trapped underneath.

Harvesting Strawberries

Strawberries are ripe as soon as they’ve turned red. They taste best immediately after picking. Strawberries can be stored in a refrigerator after picking, but this does make them a little less flavorsome.

Once strawberries have finished fruiting, cut back the older foliage to leave just the young, central leaves. Add any straw mulch to your compost heap.

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Growing Strawberries in Containers – Strawberry Plants

Bob asked:

I have a large container on my patio with strawberry plants in it. This was the 2nd summer for these strawberries. Unfortunately, the plants only put out a handful of strawberries back in early June. I was very disappointed to say the least. I had stopped by a local nursery to pick their brains about the lack of yield I had this summer.

The lady there told me that strawberries grown in containers don’t typically produce a lot of fruit compared to those growing in the ground. She also asked me if I had fertilized my strawberry plants last fall before winter set in. I had never heard of doing this. Why would you fertilize a plant that is about to die from the coming cold months? If this is true, when do I fertilize? Now, that the plant is still green and alive, or do I wait for it to curl up and die after winter hits? It should be noted that I leave this container outside on my patio uncovered and exposed to the snow and elements all winter long. It survived fine this way last winter and grew back really nice this past spring, so I really didn’t have to baby it at all to keep it alive. It survived! Also, what fertilizer, if any, do I use for this fall fertilization?

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Answer to: Growing Strawberries in Containers…

Bob,
Thanks for writing in and asking about the best way to grow strawberries in containers. Believe it or not, many people write in asking about one aspect or another of using mobile, hanging, or other smaller containers for cultivation of their strawberry plants. And, like you, many people are less-than-thrilled with their results. To help you get things going in the right direction, let me make a few comments, and I’ll then list some of the common problems people have to deal with when growing strawberries in containers.

First a little bit of information about the strawberry plant itself may be in order. Amazingly, strawberry plants don’t actually die during the winter months if cared for properly (or if they live in a location where temperatures are sufficiently mild). They enter a state of dormancy where they are still living, but only just barely. This reduces the metabolic demands that are present normally to a bare minimum. The leaves die back, plant functions slow to a crawl, and they surely do look dead. But, come warmer temperatures during the late winter or spring, they burst forth again into vibrancy and verdant vivaciousness! Potted plants can even survive without any additional care in places with relatively mild winters simply by benefiting from the radiant heat that passes through house walls (if they are kept close enough).

6 Tips for Growing Strawberries in Containers

With that said, strawberries CAN be grown in containers successfully. They can even produce just as well in containers as their in-ground counterparts. However, since strawberry plants don’t typically find themselves in pots out in the wilds, the folks who put them there need to keep a few things in mind. Remembering these tips will help your plants do well.

1. Pots are small, so avoid overcrowding.

Strawberry plants are small, and they can easily fit into most pots. But, just like most other plants, they like their space and hate to be crowded. When growing strawberry plants in containers, the temptation is to let more plants root than the small area can support. To make sure you get the most out of your berry plants, be sure to let no more than 3 (or if a smaller variety, 4) plants root per square foot of soil. Since strawberry plants have relatively shallow root systems, the surface area (as long as the pot or container doesn’t taper too quickly) is sufficient to use as your calculation. If you allow too many plants to root, they will provide you with few strawberries, even if they look green and lush.

2. Snip the runners.

Most strawberry plants put out runner plants. These plants are great if you have a garden with extra space, but they aren’t so great for pots. While they will often make a very pretty cascade from a hanging basket, they also put quite a drain on the productive capacity of your plants. Snipping the runners as soon as they are recognized will allow and encourage the plants to devote most of their energy in the direction you would like: making strawberries!

3. Growing strawberries in containers increases exposure.

Strawberries are temperate by nature. That means they thrive in the temperate zones of earth above and below the equatorial tropic zones. They can’t stand tropical conditions very well without some sort of climate control. If the heat doesn’t do them in outright, the fungi and pests that do thrive in the tropics usually will. Growing strawberries in containers exposes the all-important roots of the plants to warmer temperatures than they would normally find in the ground. Without the thick and insulating properties of the ground surrounding their roots, strawberries in pots will often see their root temperature rise with the temperature of the surrounding soil. Especially if you have dark pots/containers, the root temperature is likely to rise to the point where strawberry production is affected. To mitigate this, try to shade the containers where your strawberries live. You can also put a reflective material like aluminum foil around the pots to dissipate the heat and to shade the pots as well. Also, lightly spraying the containers with a little bit of water when you water the plants can cool them as well as the water evaporates and takes some of the residual heat with it.

4. Water more often with less water.

Due to the exposure mentioned in the last point, the soil in pots will often dry out more quickly than you water them. Or, to compensate for that tendency, you may water them too much and keep the soil soggy. The trick to growing strawberries in containers is to avoid both dryness and sogginess. That is accomplished by watering with less water several times a day in the heat of the summer. The soil should stay just-damp, never dry. Also, make sure that your chosen container will drain adequately. If the soil stays soggy, even beneath the surface, deadly microbes can set up shop and deal death to your once-happy plants.

5. Container strawberries need attention after harvest.

Unbeknownst to most, the life cycle of a strawberry plant is somewhat complex. Strawberries themselves don’t actually originate in the springtime. They started their lives in the fall of the previous year. After producing a (hopefully) bountiful harvest for you, the humble strawberry plants don’t check into the equivalent of a plant Hilton for the rest of the summer to enjoy life as a container plant. No, indeed. They get busy growing and reproducing themselves via runners. Not only that, but by the beginning of fall, the little strawberry plants have begun forming the perennating buds within their crowns that will turn into next year’s flowers. The flowers turn into strawberries subsequently. So, failure to pay attention to the well-being of your container strawberries after they give you strawberries will come back to bite you in the long run. They need tender loving care through the fall. Specifically, to provide the nutrients your plants need to maximize perennating bud formation (which you will then harvest as strawberries the next spring), apply an appropriate fertilizer (10-10-10 conventional, or an equivalent organic fertilizer) in August at a rate of approximately 1/3 of an ounce per square foot.

6. Provide extra insulation for strawberries in containers.

Just as heat seeps in during the blazing summer months, winter sends forth its icy fingers more readily into above-ground containers as well. If your winters are mild, there is little to worry about. If the temperatures stay in the twenties, or just dip into the upper teens for a short period, your plants will likely come out of the winter unscathed. If the temperatures drop out of the low twenties and stay there for a while, your plants can freeze straight through. That will surely kill them. So, if the forecast calls for cold, wrap your sleeping strawberries snugly with some insulating material and/or put them in the garage to provide them some shelter from the harsh bleakness of winter.

Growing Strawberries in Containers: Concluding Comments

If you follow the general principles for growing strawberries as described here, and you pay special attention to the tips and cautions mentioned above on this page, there is no reason your container strawberries can’t perform just as well as in-ground strawberry plants. Just keep an eye on the little fellows a little more than you would the strawberries out in a garden. And, of course, good luck!

This is a question submitted to StrawberryPlants. org by a reader. See the Strawberry FAQ for more questions and answers.

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.

January and February - time to plant strawberry seeds

It is called the "Queen of the Garden" and is loved for its excellent taste. What is necessary for this tasty and fragrant berry to please your family, - says a gardener with 30 years of experience, a member of the Zharok gardening club in the city of Shelekhov, Natalya Korytchenko.

- In order for amateur gardeners to grow strawberries from seeds, certain knowledge is needed. I started cultivating strawberries 15 years ago and learned a lot of tricks by experience. nine0005

Strawberry seeds are best planted in late January or early February. Planting seeds at this time will allow the seedlings to get stronger enough for further transplantation into open ground.

Selection and processing of planting material is important. When buying seeds, check with the seller whether it is possible to grow them in the conditions of your site, on your type of soil. Most strawberry varieties grow well and thrive in any type of soil, but there are exceptions.

I know from my own experience that small-fruited strawberry seeds germinate much better than large-fruited ones. At the same time, small-fruited varieties are more resistant to certain diseases, while varieties with larger fruits, on the contrary, are susceptible to diseases. nine0005

I bred my own seeds, dried them and they germinated beautifully. In this case, I advise you to immediately sign bags, boxes, plots, so as not to confuse the varieties.

Don't get carried away with foreign made hybrids. Choose varieties that are best suited to our climatic conditions. I tried to grow Dutch seeds, but the plants from them freeze in winter.

Preparation of soil for planting seeds:

1 part of sod land,

1 part peat,

1 part pure sand.

Add eggshells.

Mix everything until smooth. It is recommended to freeze the prepared mixture.

Decide if you want to grow your strawberries horizontally or vertically. If the size of the site allows, I advise a horizontal position, it is more practical.

There are seeds that have been proven, including my own experience. This is "dawn" and "Mashenka".

Strawberry seeds should be purchased in flower shops, or from trusted breeders of this crop, for example, in gardening clubs. Everyone knows them, they are invited to exhibitions at the Sibexpocenter, they are always in sight. And they are responsible for their products.

Weed out any damaged or underdeveloped specimens before planting.

To improve and speed up germination, seeds should be soaked in water for two to three days. If desired, the seeds can be treated with phytosporin before soaking, which will protect against possible fungi and bacteria when planted in open ground. Then, using tweezers, spread the seeds on the prepared soil and take the box to a warm place. I have been preparing the soil since autumn, before planting I pour snow on it. The seeds go into the soil when the snow melts. It is possible to plant strawberries in peat pots, but now they are not of the same quality as before, so I refrain from this method. nine0005

Seeds are germinated at a temperature of plus 27-30 degrees. As soon as they hatch, it is necessary to remove the seedlings in a bright and cool place.

Sprouted strawberry seeds can be planted in plastic or wooden boxes. The main thing is that the seeds have enough light. Now the days are still short, so the seedlings can be highlighted additionally.

Seedling picking is done when a few leaves appear, or it becomes crowded. This is usually done in March. If the seeds sprouted freely, and the plants have enough space, you can not pick. nine0005

In May, seedlings are planted in open ground. We make the bed higher, with a wide hill and wide aisles. I also usually prepare the land for the ridges in the fall. Carefully transfer the sprout along with earthen cake into the prepared beds to nourish the root system. After the planting of the seedlings is completed, water each bush with half a liter of water with a diluted organic stimulant.

Seeds are usually sown after bird cherry has blossomed, when the danger of a return frost has passed. If someone plants seedlings earlier, it is necessary to cover them so that they take root more reliably. nine0005

In summer, when the ground is warm enough, the soil around the bushes should be mulched with humus. The mulch layer should not exceed 1 cm, the root circle does not need to be mulched to avoid rot.

Remember, if your beds are in direct sunlight, the first few days they should be shaded in the middle of the day so that the sprouts smoothly adapt to the new place of growth.

Planting time for strawberries in spring: how and when to plant

With the onset of March, the issues of planting new fruit and berry crops in the garden area become more and more acute. It is especially tempting to plant new varieties of strawberries. During the long winter, thousands of catalogs have been reviewed by gardeners, high-yielding strawberry varieties with huge berries have been selected, and orders have been made.

Whoever hasn't had time to order new items, we invite you to the online store of the Becker company, where you can undoubtedly choose the best varieties of strawberries of the world selection. Rules for planting strawberries in the spring - in this article. nine0005

Advantages and disadvantages of planting strawberries in the spring

Classically, transplanting and planting strawberries is carried out closer to autumn, usually this work is planned for August. But it is in the spring, by the beginning of the new planting season, that new varieties of strawberries appear, the assortment at stores is updated, so it is often necessary to plant newly purchased bushes in the spring.

Closed-rooted seedlings are considered to be suitable for planting in late summer, while bare-rooted seedlings are best planted in spring. But by and large, both spring and autumn planting have their pros and cons. nine0005

The advantages of spring planting strawberries are:

  1. High soil moisture in the area, which reduces the watering of transplanted berry bushes.
  2. Excellent survival of plants in the warm season.
  3. No danger of freezing of weak plants in winter.
  4. Formation of strong plants by the winter period with a branched root system that has grown over the summer.

The downside of spring planting strawberries and strawberries in the open ground is the fact that the crop cannot be obtained in the first year of cultivation, the first berries will ripen only after a year. nine0005

Dates for planting in spring

Strawberries are a capricious culture, so you should carefully choose the time for planting berry seedlings in open ground. General rules - young berry bushes can be planted in spring at a stable air temperature of + 15 ° C and no less.

In different regions of the country, this time will be different, so in the northern regions it is possible to plant strawberries in open ground only by the end of May, in the middle lane - by mid-May, in the south - from mid-April. These terms are rather conditional, because every year the weather in certain periods can be radically different. nine0005

Preparatory work

Preparatory work on the area intended for planting strawberries should begin no later than a month. During this time, it is necessary to remove garbage from the territory, remove stones from the soil and burn all plant residues. It is worth recalling that a place is allocated for berry beds in the southwestern parts of your garden.

If these works were carried out in the autumn, and the site was also dug up, it is worth leveling and harrowing the soil.

Strawberries can be grown in fertile soil with the addition of sand and humus. If the land on the site is suitable, it is worth adding superphosphate and ash before planting. You can check the level of soil acidity, strawberries grow well and develop in beds with a soil reaction in the range of pH 5.5-6.5.

6 important steps for planting strawberry seedlings in spring

  1. Preparation of planting holes (up to 10 cm deep) - they are placed in rows with a distance of at least 30 cm from neighboring bushes. Humus and ash are added to each well in small quantities. Before planting, the holes are watered. nine0074
  2. Root treatment - before planting the bushes in the ground, the dried strawberry roots should be soaked in water (biological preparations), after which they are dipped in a liquid mash to prevent premature drying.
  3. Planting seedlings - each bush is carefully planted in the hole, making sure that the roots do not wrap up, but fit freely in the recess. Follow the heart - the central point of growth should not be buried in the ground, covered with soil, flooded with water. The ideal position of the heart is on the same level with the surface of the bed. nine0074
  4. If the plant is deeply buried, the bud will dry out, and if, on the contrary, planted close to the soil surface, the roots will dry out. With any of the options, strawberry seedlings will grow poorly.
  5. Carefully water the planted plants.
  6. Mulch the beds with hay, peat chips, special films.

A few more secrets of spring planting strawberries

Beginning gardeners do not know how to plant strawberries correctly. For clarity, we illustrate the planting of strawberries in the spring photo:

  1. It is not recommended to establish a strawberry plantation in areas where nightshade crops were previously grown. Ideal predecessors for strawberries are cereal plants.
  2. Periodic weeding of beds with strawberries and removal of weeds will significantly increase crop yields.
  3. In case of changing weather conditions, heavy rains, sudden cold snaps, do not be lazy to close the beds with strawberry seedlings with a film.

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