How To Plant Strawberries

I love home-grown strawberries. There’s nothing more satisfying than watching the fruit ripen and then picking them off for a tasty breakfast or snack. If you are looking into how to grow strawberry plants, you’ll need to start with how to plant strawberries. I’ve put together a bumper post with lots of top tips on how to grow strawberry plants successfully.

How To Plant Strawberries

The good thing about strawberries is they aren’t particularly fussy about the way they are grown. You can grow them in beds, in attractive strawberry planters or even in hanging bags. So no matter how small your garden is, you should be able to grow a few of these strawberry plants well.

Strawberries like soil that drains well. They also prefer a sunny, sheltered position. The sheltered position is particularly important, as the insects will need to be able to land and pollinate the flowers and if it’s a blustery area, they will struggle to do so.

When you are looking to buy your strawberry plants, you can choose either potted plants or runners. A runner is a plant root with just a few leaves. You can plant these in early autumn or late spring.

The strawberry plants should be available from late spring and these you can plant straight into the ground.

As with most planting, you should prepare the site you are going to use for the plants. You can do this by adding some well-rotted manure or compost to the ground. You should position your strawberry plants around 35cm apart from each other. The crown should be level with the soil. The plants will need a good watering after planting.

How To Grow Strawberries in Pots

When thinking about how to plant strawberries, growing strawberries in pots is a favourable choice as this will lift them off the ground, keeping them away from slugs and snails. Your plants will do well if you don’t overcrowd them in a pot or container and also if you make sure they are in a sunny spot. Strawberry plants in pots will dry out quicker than those planted in the ground, so you’ll need to water them more.

It’s also a good idea to fertilise strawberry plants in pots every two weeks. Once they start flowering you could use a high potash liquid fertiliser to encourage good fruiting.

How To Net Strawberry Plants

Birds just love fresh strawberries, so if you don’t think about how you are going to protect your strawberries, you might find that someone else has got there first.

You can easily build a netting cover over your strawberries. You can use a net tunnel if you are growing in rows or if you need something a bit bigger, you can use a net cage. You’ll need to cover the strawberries before they turn red because that’s when they look most appetising to birds.

How to Grow Strawberries from Seeds

Like with a lot of plants, strawberries seeds will need to be germinated in a bright, warm place to start with. You can plant your strawberry seeds into seed trays, give them a little drink and wait for them to germinate. This may take between 2 and 4 weeks.

If you are looking into how to grow strawberries from seeds, you must remember that you have to wait at least a whole year before you will get a healthy harvest from the plants. You are best off pinching or cutting off the flowers in the first year, to help the plant focus its efforts on establishing its self. This is often why people prefer strawberry plants.

How to Care for Strawberry Plants

There are lots of things to think about when considering how to look after strawberry plants, but one of the top tips is in the name. Once the plant has started to bear fruit, you should tuck some straw around the plant. It will help protect the fruit and keep it clean.

You’ll need to keep your strawberry plants watered, but don’t drown them – they like fine rain. You can also give them a good boost of fertiliser (blood, fish and bone) in March/April time. It’s also important to keep on top of the weeding around your strawberry plants.

The other thing to think about when considering how to care for strawberry plants is around late Spring frosts. If you get any cold spells overnight. You’ll want to think about protecting the plants with horticultural fleece, once flowers have started to appear.

When To Harvest Strawberries

This will depend a little on when you planted your strawberries, but generally speaking for summer fruiting plants, you should start to see the fruits ripening from about June onwards. You know with a strawberry when it is ripe, as it will turn its signature red colour. Then it is ready for picking. Strawberries need to be eaten quickly once ripe and picked as they will go soft and mushy otherwise. Here are lots of recipe ideas for your strawberries.

So will you be growing strawberry plants in your garden this year? Will your plants be in a patch, a floor-standing planter or even in a wall hanging planter?

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