DIY Network

Selecting and Planting Strawberries Selecting and Planting Strawberries From "Fresh from the Garden" episode DFFG-202

There are two basic types of strawberries: June-bearing strawberries, which produce a huge crop of berries in late spring or early summer, and everbearing (day-neutral) plants, which produce a crop in early summer and then continue to bear fruit sporadically until frost. Overall, you get more fruit per plant with June-bearing strawberries, but you get a longer season of berry-picking with the everbearing types.

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	Figure A
	Figure B
	Figure C
	Figure D
	Figure E
	Figure F
	Both strawberries and blueberries can easily be grown in your home garden, and they will bear fruit for many years. The trick to growing berries is to choose the right varieties and planting techniques for your climate.

• Check with your local nursery or state cooperative extension service to select varieties suited to your climate. Both June-bearing and everbearing strawberries are usually good choices for the home gardener, but in areas where summers are really hot and humid, June-bearing strawberries are typically the better choice.

• Most strawberries will produce a good crop if only one variety is located in your garden, but there are a few varieties that need another type of strawberry planted nearby for cross-pollination (figure A).

• Strawberries grow best with a full day of sun and fertile, well-drained soil. They also need soil that is slightly acidic with a pH range of 6.0 to 6.5. Test your soil and adjust the acidity by adding sulfur or lime as required. If you need information on how to test your soil, check with your county extension service.

• You can plant as few or as many strawberry plants as you can manage, but to have enough berries for a family of four, start with 20 to 30 plants.

• Strawberries are typically bought as potted or bare-root plants (figure B). To keep bare-rooted plants from drying out as you plant them, place them in a shallow container with just enough water to cover their roots.

• When planting, use a trowel to dig a small hole (figure C), fan out the roots (figure D) and plant each plant. Gently firm the soil around the roots, and check to make sure that the strawberries are planted at the correct height. The crown of the plant, where the leaves begin to rise, should be even with the soil surface. If strawberries are planted too shallow, they'll dry out; and if they're set too deeply, they'll rot. With the strawberries in the ground, water thoroughly.

• One way to plant strawberries is to use the matted row system – a fancy-sounding name for a basic idea. With this system, the berries are planted in rows at least 4' apart. Within each row, the plants are placed every 24".

• With the matted row system, as the plants began to grow, you will remove all the flowers (figure E), pinching them off with your fingers. This prevents berries from developing the first year, but it allows the plants' energy go into making each plant vigorous and strong.

• As the season progresses, the plants will send out runners and make new plants called "daughter plants" (figure F). By the end of the first season you'll have a thick, vigorous row of strawberry plants. Then in following years you'll enjoy a huge feast of berries. With this matted row method of growing strawberries, most people get a good crop from their initial planting for three or four years before harvests begin to decline.

• In the matted row system, strawberry plants are grown as perennials. But people who garden in really hot, humid climates often prefer to treat strawberries as annuals. Gardeners who treat strawberries as annuals plant their berries in the fall of the year rather than in the spring. In this method, sometimes called the annual hill system, the berries are planted on rows that are mounded about 8" high. The plants are spaced about 12" apart. The flowers are not pinched off, and the plants bear one harvest that first spring. After the harvest, the plants are dug up and thrown away. This method requires more plants to be purchased initially and more plants to be purchased each following year.