Growing Strawberry Plants

When growing strawberry plants keep the soil moist when first planted. As they grow keep the soil moist an inch down. Fertilize according to the instructions for the fertilizer you are using. Mulch as necessary to keep the plants moist.

After the season is over, mow the plants with a mulching lawn mower. Set the blade to 1 ½ to 2” high. This will help them renew for the next growing season. Make sure you do not hit the crown. Keep the weeds pulled out.

Growing strawberry plants is easy and very enjoyable when the fruit is ripe for picking. A fresh picked, vine-ripened strawberry melts in your mouth. The stuff the store sells is not vine-ripened and does not taste as good. Several weeks ago, I did buy some at the store that had a good sweet taste.

Here in San Antonio, there is a town called Poteet that has a strawberry festival each year. We went one year and bought some strawberries. We were disappointed. They did not taste as we thought they should. Come to find out, they were grown in Mexico and shipped up for the festival. We thought we were getting something locally produced.

I planted 25 strawberries in Coleman, TX and they took off and produced like rabbits. Before too long, we had plants growing everywhere. Usually, strawberries are grown from runners the plants produced. I have planted eight for this year and within one year they will cover the entire area I have laid out for them.

Growing strawberry plants like a soil that has a pH balance of 5.5 and 6.5. They will grow in zones 3-10 but select plants that are developed for your climate. When choosing a site to plant strawberries, chose one where tomatoes, grass, potatoes or raspberries have been grown before. Ideally the soil should be prepared a whole year before planting the strawberry plants.

This is mainly if you are using an existing area. In my case, the area was existing but nothing has been grown in it for several years. Plus I have added store bought soil so my area should be okay. My soil test kit shows that the soil has a PH of 7 so my plants should do okay.

Basically there are three ways to get and plant strawberry plants.

One is to start them from seeds. I am going to get some seeds and we will plant these and see how they do.

The next is from strawberry runners. The runners are harvested. Then the dirt is washed off and these are packed for shipping with a little moisture on them. The dirt has to be completely removed or the plants die.

When planting these, cut off the portions of the roots that are damaged. Spread them out like a spider’s web when planting. Do not worry--you will not hurt the plant doing this. This will help them grow.

The plants have a crown. This is shown in the videos. This crown cannot be covered when transplanting. If so the plant may rot and die.

Plants should be planted 12 to 18” apart in rows 3 to 4’ apart.

There are two types of strawberry plants: Junebearing and Everbearing. Junebearing produce a single crop over a week to ten days late in spring. These are great i Everbearing plants bear two crops one in the spring and a smaller one in the fall.

Go to this link for more on strawberryplants.

As Summer turns into Fall, it is time to do a little work on the Strawberry Plants. They need to be renovated. This can be done with clippers or preferably a lawnmower with a leaf catcher in order to catch the leaves that may harbor insects or diseases.

When mowing your row of strawberries, make sure the blades are high enough so they do not cut into the crown of the strawberry plant. Cutting the crown will kill the plant.

Pull out any weeds. And you may need to dig up some of your plants and thin them out some so that each plant is six inches apart.

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