advice on growing strawberries

Kazonline

In the'grow your own' mag they reckon on a 2" pot per plant and calculating how many plants per pot based on this (eg 8" pot = 4 plants). I know the oriiginal question was answered - but hopefully this will help anyone with other pots in future IYKWIM.
I also read somewhere that guttering pipes serve as good pots, and this year I might just try staggering a series of them down one of my warmest and sheltered walls - planting up the first and using the next one to catch the baby plants IYKWIM?
Kaz

Lord_Gardener

A smear of Vaseline round the pots also helps stop sluggs and mice. Worth trying to get some alpine strawberries - they are so good!!

dolly_day_dream

Advice needed please. I am very new to this and despite the howls of laughter from my children - I can and do kill cacti:o I am determined to grow our own fruit and vegetables this year. I bought 9 strawberry plants in Wilko yesterday - 3 each of Elsanta, Ostara and Honeyoye. I want to know if it will be OK to plant them outside now. I live in North Essex and I intend putting them into 3 containers. They will be on a very sheltered patio that is also quite a sun trap as it faces south and has walls on 3 sides. If it is too early to put them outside what should I do for the best for the plants? I have separate questions to ask about gooseberry and raspberry but will put them in another post. Many thanks Dolly

Icemaiden

dolly_day_dream wrote:

Advice needed please. I am very new to this and despite the howls of laughter from my children - I can and do kill cacti:o I am determined to grow our own fruit and vegetables this year. I bought 9 strawberry plants in Wilko yesterday - 3 each of Elsanta, Ostara and Honeyoye. I want to know if it will be OK to plant them outside now. I live in North Essex and I intend putting them into 3 containers. They will be on a very sheltered patio that is also quite a sun trap as it faces south and has walls on 3 sides. If it is too early to put them outside what should I do for the best for the plants? I have separate questions to ask about gooseberry and raspberry but will put them in another post. Many thanks Dolly

I planted my 18 plants outside yesturday. If we get a hard frost they might need to be covered.

I also got a gooseberry bush from Wilkos which I planted outside a couple of weeks ago.

TKP_3

Hi, I am growing Alpine strawberries, and have finally got seddlings (from seeds) :T They have only just broken ground, so nowhere near ready to plant on, but I need some advise please.
I will keep them indoors (in a propogator on the windowsill) until they have formed their first 2 real leaves. Do I start taking the propogator lid off now to begin to harden them?
Will they fruit this year?

angelavdavis

I always remove propagator lids once the seedlings start emerging to prevent them damping off.

I haven't ever had any luck from strawberries grown in strawberry pots and always grow them in the ground now.

nodwah

TKP wrote: »

Hi, I am growing Alpine strawberries, and have finally got seddlings (from seeds) :T They have only just broken ground, so nowhere near ready to plant on, but I need some advise please.
I will keep them indoors (in a propogator on the windowsill) until they have formed their first 2 real leaves. Do I start taking the propogator lid off now to begin to harden them?
Will they fruit this year?

my new alpines are at the same stage as yours and I'll keep them inside for a while purely coz they'll be 'soft' from growing up inside, but I'll transplant them into individual cells or something when they're at the 2 or 4 leaf stage. They are pretty tough but anything that's been started off inside will get a shock going outside even to a coldframe. I'm just remembering that last year up here we had a foot of snow fell in April! so you've got to judge when it's getting milder and do the hardening off gradually

nodwah

Lord_Gardener wrote: »

A smear of Vaseline round the pots also helps stop sluggs and mice. Worth trying to get some alpine strawberries - they are so good!!

Lord Gardener, I think you and I should start an alpine strawberry appreciation society as I'm always suggesting them too!!

blackcateddie

If your family eats eggs alot as mine do then don't forget to keep the shells, these can be spread on top of your soil around the plants and fruit and will act as a strong deterent for those of you who want to be organic.

Don't forget when they start to get runners, then try to keep them down to one or two per plant and peg them into a pot with some compost in . That way the new plant will be strong than if you had let lots of runners form and they will be easier to plant where you need them rather than any old place.
Strawberries grown just for fruit generally have a three/four year life span and will usually have a good harvest the second year after planting onwards so this way they become self propagating and you can have lots of fruit for free. HTH

Paulo

I got some strawberry plants at the end of last year, planted them in a couple of big pots (3 plants per pot). Only got a few strawberrys from them as expected as it was nearing november, but expecting big things this year :j but how do you stop the fruit from coming into contact with the soil? Some of my strawberries ended up rotten where they were sitting on the soil.
Should I be doing something to prevent this?

Thanks