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Post Date:
6th Dec 2021
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Post Summary:
The strawberry has to be the epitome of a British summer. David shows you how this delicious fruit can easily be home-produced for up to 6 or 7 months of the year with this step-by-step easy to follow guide...
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The GrowMad Essential Guide to Growing Strawberries
| Introduction
There surely can be nothing more quintessential and iconic than the strawberry in a British summer.
The humble strawberry has quite a history. Diaries show entries of strawberries being grown and consumed as far back as the 13th century. Many records show the fruit being eaten at banqueting feasts by royalty during the 16th century and strawberries and cream were served at the very first Wimbledon tournament in 1877 and have been as important at this sporting event as the tennis ever since.
Many of us may have childhood memories of the many pick-your-own establishments that once existed, running through straw-lined strawberry fields gorging on ripe fruit with gay abandon and exiting with sticky fingers and juice-smeared faces.
Often expensive in the shops and with a lack of that strawberry flavour we all remember, there really is no reason why you can't produce your own, if not for the whole season, at least part of it.
There's a lot to cover, so prepare the cream...
Read more
| Types of Strawberries
Commercially, by using different types of plants and varying methods of cultivation, strawberries are available every day of the year, even in the UK.
Strawberry types fall into one of 5 main categories, with the first 3 used extensively for commercial production but all 5 are available to the home gardener.
| June bearers - a rather misleading description as June bearers are used for production over several months, although peak cropping falls generally around June if grown naturally.
June bearers are probably the group of strawberries with the largest number of varieties. They are popular because they produce consistently large fruit and are highly productive.
This group can be further subdivided into earlies, mids and lates with about 4-5 weeks between early and late harvesting periods.
The early June bearers will start to crop in Late May with their peak in mid-June, whilst late June bearers will start to crop in July and go through into early August.
The big disadvantage with June bearing strawberries is their cropping period for individual varieties, is limited to about 2 weeks and that's it until next year.
June bearers are classed as short-day plants and as such initiate their flowers during the winter period. They also readily produce runners, so establishing new crops is easy.
| Everbearers, perpetuals or remontant - also a misleading title as they don't crop continuously. Instead, they have between 2 and 3 flushes over a 4- 5 month harvest window. The fruits tend to be slightly smaller than the June-bearing varieties and each flush is smaller in yield.
Everbearers, also known as perpetual, are long-day plants and initiate buds when the day length hits 12 hours.
Ever-bearing strawberries produce few if any, runners.
| Day-neutral - as the name suggests are not dependent on the duration of the day length, but are more responsive to temperature.
They will crop continuously once temperatures reach a certain level and keep cropping until temperatures drop. They don't however appreciate very high temperatures.
Day-neutral strawberries produce few, if any, runners.
| Alpine - relates to what can be described as wild or woodland strawberries. The fruits are small, have a limited harvest window and yields can be poor. They are, however, probably the sweetest of all strawberry types and well worth growing.
| Heritage - varieties generally handed down over time from the 19th and 20th centuries. Although often having higher sugar levels and more delicate flavours than modern-day cultivars, they lack disease resistance and yield potential. Still available for the aficionado, but rarely used commercially.
| Recommended Varieties
There are hundreds of varieties available worldwide, but we have listed a selection of varieties that we know will deliver the goodies...
June bearers
Earlies
Vibrant Malling Centenary Allegro Christine Honeoye Korona
Mids/main season
Elegance Elsanta Eros Hapil Lucy Marshmello Pegasus Renaissance Sonata Sweetheart
Lates
Cupid Fenella Florence Malling Allure Malwina Symphony Judibell
Everbearers/perpetual
Malling Ace Albion Flamenco Ostara Malling Opal Aromel Calypso Bolero Rapella Tango Finesse Malling Champion
Day-neutral
Camarosa Seascape Albion Everest Tribute Tristar Evie2
Alpine
Fraises des Bois Framberry Leo alba Frau Mieze Schindler Mignonette
Heritage/heirloom
Royal Sovereign Mara de Bois Red Gauntlet Cambridge Favourite Gariguette Manille Catskill Jerseybelle Annablanca (white) Mariguette
| Strawberry Plant Suppliers
Strawberry plants can be bought as potted plants or in a number of other plant forms to be used as starting material depending on the time of year:
Fresh plants (freshly dug from waiting beds)
Runners
Graded Crowns
Misted tips
Bare roots
Cold-stored plants/runners
There are many very good nurseries and suppliers of strawberry plants in various forms. We have listed our recommended suppliers here -
The Organic Gardening Catalogue
Or as an alternative, you can find a complete list of strawberry planting material suppliers here in the GrowMad Product Directory
| How to Grow Your Own Strawberries
| Growing strawberries in soil
The traditional method of growing strawberries has always been to grow directly into the soil.
Commercially, however, planting into the soil has largely been superseded by more modern techniques.
Grow strawberries in a well-prepared strawberry bed, pot, growing bag or strawberry planter, in a sheltered spot that gets plenty of sun, for sweet, juicy fruits. Add plenty of well-rotted horse manure or garden compost to the soil before planting. Water plants well, especially in hot weather, and feed regularly with a high potash feed from early spring onwards. Harvest when the fruits are red all over. Replace plants every three or four years by planting fresh plants or propagating new plants from runners.
| Growing strawberries in containers and grow bags
As an alternative to planting directly into soil, strawberries work well in containers or grow bags. Growing strawberries in containers has the big advantage of being portable. If you wish to force early varieties, simply move the container under cover in late winter.
You can find a comprehensive list of container suppliers here and grow bag suppliers here.
| Growing strawberries in hanging baskets
If space is limited, growing strawberries in a hanging basket may be a solution.
Choose a basket of at least 25cm, fill it with multipurpose compost and plant a single plant in the middle. Take care with watering, hanging baskets will require far more frequent watering than plants established in the soil.
| General Cultivation
Water your strawberry plants regularly, especially when new plants are establishing or in hot weather. Avoid wetting the centre of the plant or wetting any ripening fruits, to prevent grey mould.
In early spring, scatter a general-purpose fertiliser around your plants in the ground, following the instructions on the pack. From early spring onwards, encourage flowering and fruit set by feeding your strawberry plants with a high-potash feed (such as tomato feed) every week or two (follow the pack instructions).
Tuck some straw around the plants just before the fruits start to develop, or put a strawberry mat around each plant. This helps to keep the berries clean and deters slugs and snails. It also helps to keep weeds down.
Netting can be used to deter birds and small mammals from eating the fruits. This needs to be fixed carefully as birds, hedgehogs, slow worms and other animals can become trapped in the netting, and die. Ideally, you should use a fixed net cage with holes large enough for pollinators to access the strawberry flowers, which cannot stretch and become entangled. However, by paying careful attention to loose netting you can ensure no animals can become trapped.
| Forcing strawberries
If you would like to extend your strawberry harvesting period, you can increase the number of varieties you produce to increase your cropping window or use a forcing technique.
Forcing simply means using early varieties and bringing them from outside into the greenhouse or polytunnel. Using heat will encourage even earlier cropping. Using the correct technique and varieties, harvesting can begin as early as March. Using protected cropping will also enable harvesting to run well into November, offering you a 9-month harvesting period.
For the earliest harvests undercover, the variety 'Malling Centenary' is probably the best currently available and should deliver the desired result. Bred to mark the 100th anniversary of the leading East Malling Research Station in Kent, this variety has a superb flavour with uniform and glossy, bright red, conical shaped fruit which is well displayed on the plant, making picking quick and easy.
| Propagating strawberries
Choose a healthy runner which has produced one or more leaves, and remove any stems emerging from the new leaves, while keeping it still attached to the parent plant. Fill pots with multi-purpose compost. Place the strawberry runner on the surface and hold it in place using a U-shaped staple or a piece of wire.
Don’t snip off the stem linking the new plant to its parent – keep this until the new plant has developed strong roots. Keep the compost moist at all times.
As soon as the plants are strongly rooted, snip off the stem connecting it to the parent plant, and plant it into a larger pot, or out into prepared ground.
Please be aware, that it is illegal to propagate varieties that are protected by plant breeders' rights (PBR).
| Strawberry Pests & Diseases
When it comes to pests and diseases, like most horticultural crops, strawberries have their fair share.
The 3 most common pests will include slugs/snails, vine weevils and spotted wing drosophila-
Slugs & Snails
Slugs & Snails have to be the gardener's number 1 enemy.
Strawberries are a favourite food source of these annoying pests but can be controlled with the use of the usual deterrents.
Spotted wing drosophila
The spotted wing drosophila (SWD) is a vinegar fly, more usually referred to as a fruit fly. Unlike the common fruit fly which is attracted to overripe fruit, the SWD prefers underripe fruit and will attack before the fruit is ready for harvest.
It is prevalent in many summer fruits, particularly in strawberry crops.
Adults will overwinter in hedgerows on host plants such as blackberry, hawthorn, sloe, snowberry and honeysuckle, to produce a new generation the following summer.
Chemical control is difficult, a more organic approach would be to cover crops with fleece or other insect-proof mesh just before fruit begins to ripen as well as using traps developed especially for SWD. Good plant hygiene is essential, as is removing all mature fruit.
You can find more information on SWD traps here Agralan SWD traps
You can discover more detailed information regarding SWD here AHDB
Vine weevils
Vine weevils can be a serious pest in strawberries and many other plants in the garden. The adults feed on foliage and developing fruit, whilst the larvae feed on the roots.
Vine weevils are all female and so reproduce without mating (parthenogenetically). This means that only one vine weevil is required to start an infestation. An adult weevil can lay well in excess of 1500 eggs during her lifetime.
Adult weevils can overwinter in leaf litter and emerge in spring, but after a cold winter, most vine weevils will emerge from pupae in the soil during May and June and will start laying eggs within a month.
A complete list of Pests and Diseases has been provided courtesy of our friends over at Vissers in the Netherlands: Strawberry Pest and Diseases
| Discover More
BBC Good Food Top 5 Health Benefits of Strawberries
Health & Nutritional Facts of Strawberries
| Takeaway & Conclusion
So with some time and a little effort, you can see that by using a range of varieties and growing techniques, the need for shop-bought strawberries can be minimised for a large chunk of the year.
Low sugar low fat Strawberries are a good source of vitamin C, manganese, folate (vitamin B9), and potassium. They contain small amounts of several other vitamins and minerals. What's not to like?
As an added benefit, Studies have shown that regularly consuming strawberries may aid in preventing platelet build-up, reduce blood pressure, and even reduce the risk of a heart attack because of the anthocyanins they contain. Also, because of the high potassium levels in strawberries, this fruit helps neutralize the effects of sodium in the body.
There really is no excuse for not growing your own strawberries and with the added health perks, go order some plants today!
See you on the soil...
David
