We all love to eat strawberries and they are so simple to grow. All you need is a small garden or a large flower pot. In the spring is the best time to start them although they will do fine when planted in the summer too. You will just need to water them more.

You will first need to get your soil ready for plants. When your soil is ready you will need to purchase plants.  Your local greenhouse or a mail order catalog is a good place to look. You will be buying roots with a small crown on top.

Earliglo and Jewel are favorites and are quite sweet. Jewel berries are nice size and are firm. If your ground is warm then plant the roots with the crown sticking out of the ground. Water them.

If you have an established patch of strawberries then now in the spring time is when you need to weed them. My patch had quite a few dandelions in it. After I hoed all the weeds then I put Preen on the patch. This can be bought in any garden center and it will keep your weed down by not letting seeds germinate. It is also good to mulch around the strawberries with straw or mulch.

My last patch got thistles in it and they are very hard to get rid of. I finally took a sprayer with weed killer and sprayed each individual thistle. I still had some left so I tilled in the patch and started another one on the other side of my garden.

I like to fertilize my plants in the spring. Usually I buy the Preen with fertilizer in it. So simple to sprinkle it on and it is done. This year I put Preen on and then watered them with Miracle Grow. A 10-10-10 fertilizer is great too. Apply fertilizer again as the berries are growing.

For large berries, they will need an inch or two of water weekly.

 

If something is making holes in your berries it maybe slugs. You can buy bait for them in most garden centers.

After the berries are over then you should mow the plants off. During July and August the plants need no care. In Sept. Fertilize again and make sure they get 1-2 inches of water a week. Regularly weed them.

In late Nov. cover the plants with a few inches of straw to protect them from the winter’s cold.

So now you know how to raise strawberries. Even if you don’t follow this exactly you will still enjoy lots of good berries.