advice on growing strawberries

katskorner

Strawberries love seaweed-based feeds. Calcified Seaweed is great and available from garden centres.

They also grow well alongside spinach for those of you who want to try companion planting.

steady__eddie

"Just been reading about needing a paintbrush for the strawberries!!!!! could someone enlighten me please??"

I think that this may refer to pollination. Some years ago, I attempted to grow melons (unsuccessfully) and the destructions on the packet said that you should use a camel hair brush and rub it on each flower to assist pollination. I must have used the wrong type of camel. If you've got bees or other insects around your way, I wouldn't bother too much about it. Some people say that they bang the side of the pot to circulate the pollen when the plants are flowering.
Does anyone know where I can get some Alpine strawberry seeds from please ? The garden centre that I visited this morning had every line that Thompson & Morgan have ever produced with the exception of alpines and currently Suttons site is down.

Pandora123_2

steady__eddie wrote: »

Does anyone know where I can get some Alpine strawberry seeds from please ? The garden centre that I visited this morning had every line that Thompson & Morgan have ever produced with the exception of alpines and currently Suttons site is down.

I ordered some from here and some from here.

Seedfest ships from the US, so if you want them fast, order from Suffolk.

:A

lovebug_rita

i bought 6 plants from aldi recently and repotted them into a larger container of multi purpose compost - except now they seem like that they are all but dying - what did i do wrong ?

help !

julbags

I got some Suttons Mignonette alpine strawberry seeds from B & Q. I also got some Alpine Strawb plants (couldn't resist) from Dobies, they seem to be doing well.

LindseyM

does anyone have a pic of what the runners look like? my new plants seem to be thriving but i want to give them the best chance and i'm sure i read that i should remove the flowers and runners (?) to produce better fruit...?

TIA

katskorner

julbags wrote: »

I got some Suttons Mignonette alpine strawberry seeds from B & Q. I also got some Alpine Strawb plants (couldn't resist) from Dobies, they seem to be doing well.

I am growing Mignonette this year too, from seed. Be nice alongside my non-alpine varieties (Korona and Maxim)!

Noozan

LindseyM wrote: »

does anyone have a pic of what the runners look like? my new plants seem to be thriving but i want to give them the best chance and i'm sure i read that i should remove the flowers and runners (?) to produce better fruit...?

TIA

http://www.isledegrande.com/giimages9/wildstrawberryrunners.jpg

The main plant will send out lots of baby plants like these. (A bit like spider plants)

LindseyM

Marvellous, thanks Noozan - so should I remove them as soon as they come out or do I wait until they are as long as in the pic....? (cos I already have these, I just didn't realise they were runners!! total newbie, can ya tell?? :rolleyes:)

Noozan

LindseyM wrote: »

Marvellous, thanks Noozan - so should I remove them as soon as they come out or do I wait until they are as long as in the pic....? (cos I already have these, I just didn't realise they were runners!! total newbie, can ya tell?? :rolleyes:)

If you plan to remove them, do it as soon as they cone out so that the plant can concentrate it's energy elsewhere.

If you want more plants, push each runner plant into a small pot of compost and anchor it with a bit of wire (I use an opened up paperclip). After a couple of weeks, it will have rooted and you can sever it from the parent plant.