Saturday 5 April 2014

How to grow awesome strawberries



 In my little garden I have a square meter raised bed which I filled with some of my favorite summer fruit; strawberries! Oh the joy of a fresh picked strawberry on a warm summer day. And strawberry jam. And strawberry tart. And strawberries for desert. Yes I love strawberries.

I bought some strawberries at the start of spring last year, and didn’t get any strawberries of them. I was so sad and blamed my poor gardening skills, until I learned that strawberries usually need a year to settle.

In my ‘oh why art thou not growing’ quest I found some more very useful tips. I am sharing my top 5 with you today.

1. Strawberries need at least six hours of sunshine a day. 

Put them in a sunny spot in your garden en let the sun feed them lots of lovely light. I have mine on a spot that gets loads of sunshine the entire day.

2. Strawberries need lots of water. 

To grow delicious strawberries, they need about 2 inches of water (rain) each week. So keep track with the weather forecast and water those babies when it is to dry.

3. Strawberries don’t like wet soil.

 Yes I just told you your strawberry babies need lots of water. However, when the soil is too wet, the roots will start to rot and also your strawberries will start rotting before they are ready to eat. To make sure this catastrophe doesn’t happen, use a raised bed to allow proper drainage.
The raised bed drains exces water nicely.

4. Runners ruin a good strawberry harvest.

 Those cute little strawberry plants on the end of a runner may seem great because you get a new strawberry plant, but they cost a lot of energy. Keep a few to get new plants going but cut off the rest. This way your plant can save all its energy on giving you awesome strawberries.

5. Strawberries love onions.

 They keep pests away and ensure a better harvest. This is called companion planting. I like to call it the buddy system. Keep strawberries away from cabbage and any cabbage relatives. They will fight and forget to grow your strawberries.  

Here you see my strawberries happily getting along with a baby onion. 



How do you keep your strawberry patch producing nicely?

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