strawberry plant advice wanted

alang_2

Saw some strawberry plants ,( 3 for £1.50 )in tesco so bought some.Never grown them before so some advice welcome.
Two of the plants have a solitary flower on them, do you take them out to let the plant develop or leave them alone?
the strawberry type is Elsanta.
thanks
Alan

madjackslam

It's the right time of year to plant strawberries, so that's good. In the first year I have heard it recommended that you remove the flowers to let the plant develop. However, it doesn't seem to say that here, and this is also probably more than enough advice to get you started http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardening/Grow-Your-Own/Fruit-A-to-Z/Strawberries

C_Mababejive

No ..leave the flowers as these will eventually be the strawberrys

How are you growing them? are they still potted?

If you are moving them to grow bags my advice would be to get good quality grow bags,raise them off the ground to keep slugs and snails away,perhaps consider angleing the plants in the bag so that they will tend to grow down thus keeping fruit hanging and not touching the growbag surface (rot)..punch holes in base of bag to ensure good drainage,,do not over water..

Home grown strawbs are so much better than shop bought stuff..

alang_2

thanks for the link and the advice,they are still in pots.
I have a raised wood planter that I have made for them and will plant them out in that, hopefully we will get some strawberries from them this year , I have some netting ready for the birds! :-)
Alan

wellused

I have ordered 24 bare rooted plants which were on offer free in a well known gardening magazine which I had to pay postage only. I want to plant them in a cloche tunnel which I grew melon in last year the tunnel is about 2.5M long and 1M wide, I read that strawberries should be planted 45CM apart which would mean that I wouldn't get them all in the tunnel but I have noticed that people on the allotment have planted them much closer than that, what is the best distance to plant them?

wallbash

45 cms seems a waste of space , mine are half that.
I would plant all in your tunnel. problem might come next year, you will have to be ruthless with any runners

wellused

Ok thanks I thought that 45cm was a bit generous.

Linda32

It is generous to say the least. :eek: We have an established bed at the allotment. Our plants are now are about 10-15cm apart.

Don't take the flowers off, in fact you don't have to do anything to strawberrys apart from netting them as the birds like them as much as you do Make sure you can water them well and keep them off the ground, as previously said. We do this by buying pet bedding (straw?) normally for rabbits etc. If you put handfulls around the plants then the fruit eventually rest on the straw.

If you do find the odd one nibbled. Don't remove it just leave it where it is. The mice tend to come back to the same one in our experience

You can leave the plants where they are all year, through frost, snow, ice they don't mind and will provide fruit for three years before they give up. You will find what are called 'runners' these are little plants attached to the main plants. You can plant these in the ground where they settle. Or plant then into plant pots to move elsewhere. They will root and then you can remove them from the plant where they grew from.

HTH

wallbash

And we must add that the life of a strawberry can be long, but its best to replace them after three years. So I would remove all runners this year, but next summer pot up a number of new plants, and again in two years, and start removing the tired plants.Not so essential if you have the room , such as an allotment.But in restricted space,good practice.

wallbash

Also would be nice to grow more than one type, extend the season