Paging strawberry growers

[lily]

More by accident than design we grew some strawberries this year and they were lovely. I only had 2 plants as I bought on spec the last 2 at the farmers market and don't know what they were called.

Do any of you have any recommendations of ones we can buy for next year?

Ta muchly!

xxx

[idiotmittens]

lily said:

Do any of you have any recommendations of ones we can buy for next year?

We grow strawberries on a small commercial basis (about 200 plants) and most are Honeoye.

They are an early variety, and with Cornwall being almost a month ahead of most of 'mainland' Britain, we can sell them at a decent price before the market is swamped with Elsanta and other 'supermarket' varieties. Ours are normally over by the time Wimbledon starts, which is great, as picking pounds of fruit every evening gets a bit wearing after a couple of weeks.

Lovely flavour, good aroma, decent size - just what you want in a decent strawberry

[lily]

idiotmittens said:

lily said:

Do any of you have any recommendations of ones we can buy for next year?

We grow strawberries on a small commercial basis (about 200 plants) and most are Honeoye.

They are an early variety, and with Cornwall being almost a month ahead of most of 'mainland' Britain, we can sell them at a decent price before the market is swamped with Elsanta and other 'supermarket' varieties. Ours are normally over by the time Wimbledon starts, which is great, as picking pounds of fruit every

evening gets a bit wearing after a couple of weeks.

Lovely flavour, good aroma, decent size - just what you want in a decent strawberry

Thank you Mr Mitts - I'll keep an eye out for them.

xxx

[lemanie]

what do you do with the plants that have grown this year, mine grew lots of green but not many strawberries and now they are merrily growing runners

[faeryboots]

We grew Cambridge favourite this year, went down a storm with the tygs. They aren't huge but are a reasonable size and were very sweet, no sugar required. With three tygs under twelve not many got as far as a bowl though!

[Fi]

lemanie said:

what do you do with the plants that have grown this year, mine grew lots of green but not many strawberries and now they are merrily growing runners

The plants just need tidying up a bit. Get rid of any old leaves and stems and give them a weak fertiliser to help them overwinter. Most strawberries don't yield much fruit in their first year. If you want to increase your stock, pin the runners down * partially unbent paper clips are good for this) in small plant pots and then, when they have rooted, sever the stems that connect to the main plants, and plant them out as a second row. If you don't want to do this, I'd cut the runners off now, so that the plant will be putting energy into itself, rather than wasting it on the runners.

[lemanie]

thanks fi guess that means i leave them where they are and don't dig them up and put them into pots then

[Fi]

lemanie said:

thanks fi guess that means i leave them where they are and don't dig them up and put them into pots then

If you leave them where they are, they will root, so they can be dug up and moved either later on this year or in spring next year. I do the pot thing is because it doesn't inflict any root damage and also it stops the paths at either side of the strawberry bed becoming overrun with the things. It's also handy in that it means that the young plants can be planted out whenever is most convenient
I have also tried the method of pinning down the runners near to the main line of strawberries, but I wouldn't recommend it because it seemed to encourage powdery mildew and other fungi, presumably because the air can't circulate freely within the row of plants.

[lemanie]

thanks Fi again, i was kind of talking about the adult plants

[Ann R Kay]

lemanie said:

thanks Fi again, i was kind of talking about the adult plants

The answer is basically - nothing - except as Fi says tidy them up, take off old dead leaves and cut off the runners if these are first year plants. You can save next year's runners if you want to increase stock.

With garden strawberries where only a few a plants are involved it helps second year fruit production if the flowers are removed in the first year. You seldom get much in the way of fruit in the first year anyway.

[lemanie]

thanks Ann, i can tackle the tidy up this weekend. I'm only growing them for the other half, how nice am i? lol

[Tigger]

I bought some strawberry plants this year and have planted out 3 directly into the border and put 3 in pots.

I am unsure whether to plant them all out in the border and let the winter do what it will, or dig them all up and put them in the garage? Plants are in a south facing border protected by a wall.

[Ann R Kay]

tigger said:

I bought some strawberry plants this year and have planted out 3 directly into the border and put 3 in pots.

I am unsure whether to plant them all out in the border and let the winter do what it will, or dig them all up and put them in the garage? Plants are in a south facing border protected by a wall.

Leave them where they are. They're frost hardy so there is no need to store them in the garage. After all field strawberries stay put for years.

[Tigger]

Yay! Less for me to do! ;D