Growing Strawberries
We love growing strawberries on Tipu Farms. Most berries take years to mature enough to get a decent harvest. When growing strawberries you get a harvest in the first year! Here is the basic information needed to get you growing strawberries:
There are Three Main Types When Growing Strawberries:
- Day-neutral strawberry plants have three crops, one in June, one in July, and one in August.
- Everbearing plants have smaller crops, but they continue bearing until the end of summer. The usually bear when the days have 12 hours of sunlight.
- June bearing plants have one huge crop of berries per year usually around June depending of what zone you live in.
Some strawberry plants send out runners that re-root and grow a new plant. This can be great if you want to increase the size of your strawberry bed. However, if you are planting in containers, you might want to choose a variety that does not send out runners.
Our Favorite Type of Strawberry
Our favorite strawberry is a June Bearing strawberry. It’s actually belongs to a subset called a short-day strawberry. Strawberries that flower and set fruit with fewer than 14 days of sunlight OR do well in cooler weather are considered short-day strawberries. In fact, many commercial varieties are short-day. We love the Camarosa Strawberry. Even though it produces primarily around June…we have plenty throughout the summer and even find them here and there into November, in zone 9a. It produces a large firm delicious berry.
Other short-day strawberries include: Allstar, Annapolis, Benicia, Benton, Camarosa, Camino Real, Cavendish, Chandler, Earliglow, Firecracker, Florida Radiance, Gaviota, Glooscap, Honeoye, Hood, Jewel, Kent, Mesabi, Mojave, Northeaster, Shuksan, Strawberry Festival, Surecrop, Sweet Charlie, Tillamook, and Totem.
How to Start Growing Strawberries
There are three ways to get started:
- Buy starts in pony packs or pots- These will be nice green plants that are ready to go int he ground. There might be existing fruit on the plants when you purchase. These fruits may or may not make it through transplantation. We used this method on year one of the farm. We were a little late for bare root and wanted to get the berries in the ground. From here on out we will just use the runners to expand our strawberry patch. Even though strawberries are perennials, they will get less robust after the first few years.
- Buy bare root- During the winter you can purchase more dormant plants in bar root form. These will not be as green as the plants you buy in pots, but, will take off and grow once the weather warms a bit. You can get large amounts of bare root starts for a very good price compared to the starts in pots.
- Plant seed- This method takes the longest?
What Pests are a Problem When Growing Strawberries?
Slugs- There are two easy, safe, and natural methods to get rid of slugs. First, place a long wood board flat on the ground near the strawberries. Let it set overnight. In the morning lift it up and find slugs attached to the bottom. Simply dispose of them, or take the board to the chicken coop and let them do the job. The second method is to trap them in beer. Place a shallow dish level with the ground and fill it with half inch of beer. The slugs will be attracted to the smell of the beer, fall in, and die.
Pests like spittle bugs, strawberry sap bugs, strawberry bud weevils, tarnished plant bugs, roly polys, and pincher bugs/earwigs can also pester your strawberry plants. We don’t have a huge problem with pests outside the slugs.
We like to inter-plant our strawberries with chives. Chives are a great all around pest repelling plant. They don’t try to compete with the strawberry plants at all. We like to think the chives are responsible for the lack of pests in our strawberry bed!
Where to Next After Reading up on Growing Strawberries?
- Head on over to our Garden section to see what else if going on in the garden at Tipu Farms! We are doing much more than growing strawberries.
- Head on over to Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co or Johnny’s Selected Seeds to purchase bare root strawberry plants or strawberry seeds. Get to growing strawberries this season!
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