All About Strawberries

There are three major types of strawberries, though if you counted, you'd find over six hundred varieties! Different shapes, sizes, colors and growing habits differentiate these wonderful treats. The major types of strawberries are:
June Bearing (either early, mid or late)
Day Neutral (bearing throughout the season)
Alpine (small, but packed with flavor!)

What type you decide to grow will depend on what you're looking for. The June bearing varieties put out a lot of strawberries over a two to four week period,and come in early bearing, mid-bearing and late-bearing varieties, while the day neutrals puts out a smaller yield per plant, but you do get strawberries throughout the season. Alpine strawberries bear all their red or yellow fruits at once over a few week period, then become more of an ornamental low growing foliage plant for the rest of the season. There have been debates as to whether birds tend to eat the yellow alpine strawberries less than the red ones, but it seems that if there's an animal or bird that finds them tasty, you'll be contending with them unless you cover them with a light netting.

The rule of thumb for strawberries is: 25 plants per person (this is for the June bearing or day neutral - the Alpine strawberries is more like 50-75, but more on that later). The plants do have quite a large space requirement, so planning a strawberry patch is essential.

There are several ways you can grow strawberries in your garden, as well as on your patio and in your house. Finding a mostly sunny location for the day neutral or June bearing, and semi shade for the alpine variety, you can plant your patch in:
Raised beds,
Rows,
Hills,
Containers,
Hydroponically

Raised beds give you the advantage of not letting the roots stay too wet. The downside being that they can dry out quicker. The other advantage is you can usually see the snails and slugs easier in raised beds and take action (or borrow a duck to eat the slugs). It's also easier to set up netting in a raised bed, tacking up a pole at each corner and draping the netting over the top.

Rows give you the advantage of being able to tend them easier - being able to get the runners and train them to new locations after the fruiting season is done, easier picking, mulching and mowing.

The hill method is a mix of both raised bed and rows, where each plant has it's own hill, each hill in a row, and a space between the rows for tending.

Containers are great for the occasional berries, for the single person, or for those with large patio areas. The advantages of containers is that it often thwarts the slugs and you can put the containers almost anywhere there's space, the downside being you have to watch the moisture level carefully.

Hydroponically grown strawberries are an experiment I'm hoping to try, having successfully grown day neutrals into the winter in an unused space in the house using potting soil and an LED grow light. A vertical wall or bookshelf properly waterproofed could house quite a lot of plants, and watering could be done automatically. Also - as there's no soil coming in from outside, there's no slugs to contend with either - only berry-mad children who get up earlier than I do.

All strawberry plants need ample space to grow, otherwise the yield and size become disappointing. Day neutral plants need less space, but you'll have to plant more of them to get a good yield all summer.

For day neutral varieties, best planted in mounds, should be about 15" apart, and only allowing runners to grow when the mother plant has exhausted it's yield. After August, all runners should be removed so the concentration of the plant will be to it's root system. If planting in rows, you should give each plant 18" of space, and have a 24" space between each row.

June bearing plants should be planted 18-24" apart with the rows spaced four feet apart! That's a lot of garden real estate! Why so much space? It allows the strawberries room to grow, and allows you to get in and weed much easier. As I mistook the day neutrals for the everbearings and planted them the wrong way, I now find I can't get in and weed, so I'm out carefully clipping weeds between the plants - not worth the effort if you can give them room to grow. This space also allows you to get in and cultivate the soil with a hoe or a mini tiller (manual, gas or electric) - one of those presents I'll be hinting at next spring for father's day...

Strawberries are hungry, thirsty plants that don't like to have their roots soaked, so give them 1" of water per week, and fertilize them once every month from June through September. Keeping the weeds down will allow the plants to get more fertilizer, too. If you feel you're fighting a losing battle with the weeds, weed an area, lay down a killing mulch (5 layers of wet newspaper, then straw on top of that) around each plant. As long as there's enough straw on top of the newspaper, the weeds can't break through the newspaper. Make sure you leave about 3" around the base of the strawberry plant so it can breathe and receive water.

Mulching will keep the ground moist, the strawberries out of the dirt, and allow you to see the slugs and snails. Some people swear by either black or red plastic mulch, while others stick with straw or wood chips.

Strawberries are usually planted in the spring time after the threat of frost has past, but preparing the beds the fall before can save you a lot of time. Well rotted manure and a killing mulch of either newspaper or even cardboard in the fall will make for easy planting the next spring. The plants are usually bare root, with a small crown that has to be even with the soil. Too low, the crown will rot; too high, the roots will dry out. Most mail-order plants come with illustrated instructions, and if you're buying locally, the nursery will probably have a similar handout.

Strawberry plants aren't as picky as tomatoes when it comes to watering - they can be sprayed from the top with a sprinkler, but if you can take a little more time to plan, a root watering system from a simple soaker hose to an eco-friendly solar garden watering system will save the water from evaporating. Water in the evening or in the morning, but only up to an inch per week. For some great gardening tips and tricks, look to gardenhacker.com

Strawberries should never be planted where potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants or raspberries, as they can spread verticulum wilt, and destroy your strawberry plants.

There are also several other diseases to be aware of, including powdery mildew, leaf spot and slime molds, as well as others. Some excellent reference links include:
University of Minnesota Extension

North Carolina State University

Oregon State University