Strawberries!!!

No need for a witty title here.  Everyone loves strawberries!  Alas, I have a love hate relationship with them.  I love fresh, locally grown, in season strawberries.  Why all the descriptors?  Because I HATE the non-local, winter grown, flown from California, totally tasteless strawberries that you get at the grocery store.  But I still find myself buying them in hopes they're magically delicious. 


Prior Failures
So pretty much each year I try to grow strawberries and fail miserably.  Last year I got a stacking container.  One super hot day later and all the strawberries had withered up and died overnight.  No amount of watering or shade really got them back to life and I gradually threw each one away as the hope for a comeback dwindled. Lesson from last year?  Strawberries enjoy cooler weather, so if you're having a 100+ degree day, water them before you leave for work and put them in a spot that will get some afternoon shade.  If you are growing them in containers, this should be easy.


This Year's Renewed Attempts
On to this year:  to the right of my front fence I planted a line of strawberry plants.  Mostly Eversweet (which is an everbearing) and two Loran (also everbearing).  Picked them up at Lowe's for $2.50 each.  Most strawberries sold around here for home gardeners are Everbearing, meaning they bear smaller fruit throughout the season.  I'm guessing a trip to a nursery would have more variety but I'm just trying to keep a plant alive long enough to bear fruit so I don't care what type they are.  The other type, June bearing, means all the fruit comes at once in one big harvest, and these tend to be the biggest berries.  There's also a type called Day Neutral...which as far as I can tell does exactly the same thing as Everbearing.

Then, I'm also doing a strawberry container pot!  I've heard you need one that's at least 18'', so I got a larger one.  Most places only sell a small pot that's about 8'' high and far cheaper, so it took me some time to find the taller one.  I finally ended up sending out an APB to family that I was looking for one and my sister found a cheap one and picked it up for me.  So if you want one, get the word out to friends to search early!  I got mine well after the season ended.  Last year after getting it I researched how to use this tall pot and there's all sorts of layering with rocks in between each level of plants and some pole in the center with holes to distribute the water, but I'm far too lazy for that.  So I guess if my container plants die, I'll try it the hard way next year.  I just stuffed the plants in the holes and filled the pot with potting soil.  Nothing special.  But in here I have the same two varieties as in the bed and also Ozark. 

Prepping the Strawberry Bed

Fabric, plants, and mounds.

On the strawberries that went in the ground I tilled the area to get rid of grass and weeds a few weeks ago.  Strawberries are an early spring plant, meaning you get them in the ground a few weeks BEFORE the last frost date, as soon as the soil can be worked.  Then I went in and re-weeded the area until it was simply clean dirt.  You really need to weed well for an area you're planting strawberries in because they're not a hearty plant and can easily get overrun by weeds and die.  Supposedly their roots are also very susceptible to grubs and whatnot so they recommend planting in an area that's been unplanted for a while.  Ideally this means clearing the bed of grass and weeds the fall before you plant them.  I ignored this advice, we'll see how it goes.  Also, supposedly any bed with prior inhabitants in the last three years of potatoes, tomatoes, peppers or eggplant is a HUGE no-no for strawberries because they have zero immunity to something these plants carry called Verticillium Rot.  That's why I just plopped them down in the front yard; I know no veggies went there.

Planting

Finished product.

Once weeded, I grabbed some compost and tilled it into the soil, getting the soil as loose as possible for planting.  Then formed 8 little mounds to plant in.  After that, I cut little X's in some landscaping fabric and laid that down around the strawberry plants to keep the weeds from competing with them.  Black plastic landscaping fabric is a no-no because the strawberries are a cool weather plant and will get too hot with the heat trapped in.  Here's hoping my black mesh landscaping fabric breathes better and is okay.  Next up after that is some pine needles for mulch; straw is another good option.

Now...to sit back and wait on how my experiment does.  In order to get the plants growing you're supposed to pluck off all blooms until July 1 the first year for Everbearing types so that the plant tries harder to grow.  After that, you can let them turn to full berries for the rest of the summer and enjoy.  The next year you can just eat all the berries, no need to pinch off the early buds.  Also, don't over fertilize because it leads to the plants growing too many leaves and not enough blooms.  I'll post updates throughout the season on how they're doing!