Strawberry Plants 2020: Ready, set ...

According to the meteorological calendar, the UK spring season officially starts on 01 March. The weather is wet and windy but I cant wait! With spring around the corner, it was time for me to give my strawberry plants a little TLC.

I grow strawberry Fragaria x annanassa plants of many different varieties in containers and in open ground. I also grow wild strawberry Fragaria vesca plants. My absolute favourite varieties are the French ‘Mara des Bois’ which is delicious and sweet, with (to me) a complex, slightly ‘wild strawberry’ flavour, and ‘Marshmello’ which is large, consistently flavourful, and super-sweet.

Strawberry plants are short-lived perennials, which means they can live for several years. They grow best in moist but well-drained soil in full sun. Strawberry plants are generally most productive during their first four years, after which time yields tend to decline in quantity and quality. The advice is to replace plants after three or four years, planting in different positions in open ground or in fresh potting soil, to prevent the build up of disease-causing pathogens. The good thing is that strawberry plants produce ‘runners’ or plantlets that can be rooted to produce new plants. I propagate new plants when I need them from these runners, so there’s always a healthy supply to replace unproductive plants with. I’ll talk about strawberry plant propagation in more detail later in the year.

I always do a little prepping before growth begins to accelerate in spring to improve the odds of having a great harvest. The picture below shows you just a few of the several hundreds of strawberries I ate, gave away, and shared with a few canny birds last year!

Delicious pot grown strawberries. I picked the ripe ones after taking the photo … mmmm!

Strawberry plants do take a battering each winter but they are very tough and hardy. Growth slows right down and they can look very tatty indeed. Nothing to worry about though. I’m told that the plants actually need a cool ‘chill’ period to produce good fruit sets.

I normally do a major prune back when the main fruiting season is over. After that I tend to leave the plants to their own devices over winter, but do keep an occasional eye out for pests and disease. Tatty leaves dried leaves on the plants over winter provide shelter for insects and small wildlife - the ones that I want to encourage, of course (sorry!). I’m afraid I don’t want to encourage snails and slugs.

As growth begins to pick up with the approach of spring, I do a bit of springing myself, and spring into action, removing old leaves, weeding around plants, and working in extra organic material such as well-rotted farmyard manure or compost into the soil around plants to feed and mulch.

I will place some bunched up fresh hay around each plant. This helps prevent water from splashing from the soil on to the new leaves and causing disease. It also helps keep the fruit clean and deters slugs and snails.

As a general rule of thumb, I apply specially formulated organic strawberry plant fertiliser or tomato food after the first flowers have set, and at intervals thereafter. The fertilisation regime may vary depending on when a particular variety flowers and sets fruit, the type of fertiliser you use, and the manufacturer’s instructions. As with other fruit like apples, there are early, mid and late season strawberry producers. There are some that produce once for the season, others twice, and yet others that produce on and off all summer (perpetual fruiters) and well into autumn.

Healthy strong dark green leaves and pretty, simple white flowers on one of my strawberry plants. I have some unusual pink and red-flowered strawberry plants too.

Vine weevil can be a scourge of strawberry plants, especially those grown in pots. The weevil eggs hatch into grubs, which over winter in the soil and EAT the roots of strawberry and other plants as they grow. The impact of grub activity is most severe in containerised plants as the roots are limited to the confines of the container and don’t stand a chance - dinner is served for the grubs! There’s nowhere for the roots to hide. Entire plants can be killed before you know it, because all of the ‘action’ takes place at root level in winter and spring. Strawberry plant leaves are quite firm so they may still look OK in wet winter weather even though 90% of their root system may have been eaten away! I’ve gone to weed a potted strawberry plant, only to have the entire crown (now drying out) with the leaves still attached come away ROOTLESS in my hands! THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES! I was in shock when this first happened to me and it took me a while to find the grubs and understand exactly what had gone on. That was my first introduction to the very destructive vine weevil. I know exactly what to look out for now.

There are chemical drenches available to UK gardeners for destroying the grubs but they are not recommended for use on edible plants. Containerised ornamentals only. In any case, I am trying to garden organically so the use of chemicals is out of the question. What I do have at my disposal though is biological pest control in the form of nematodes. Wonderfully brilliant scientists have enabled horticulture suppliers to package nematodes that are predators of the vine weevil grubs and make them available to hobby gardeners like me. Thank you! These nematodes can be applied to edible and ornamental plants in solution as a drench. They kill the grubs before they are able to transform themselves fully-fledged vine weevil insect, helping break the cycle of infestation. All this while being safe to handle and use around children and pets! No need to wait for chemicals to be flushed out of the plant before harvesting. I will have to wait until temperatures rise a little before I buy and apply the nematodes - if I find I have a problem. The nematodes in the brand that I use (Nemasys) are killed at the prevailing temperatures and the treatment would be rendered ineffective.

Other than that, my strawberry plants are pretty much ready and set to GO!