We haven’t bought any strawberry plants this year. We haven’t needed to: we planted a dozen or so last summer and only got about the same number of fruits in return. Quite lousy.
That pretty much decided us not to buy any more for 2009 but at the end of last summer, when we tidied up the plot for winter, we looked at the state of the strawberry patch and saw why the fruit crop had been so poor: rather than trying to reproduce by creating seeds, the plants had instead concentrated on putting out feelers and growing offspring at the end of each one.
As a result, our 12 plants had more or less doubled to 24.
So we made sure that the new plants were well seated, trimmed the branches linking them to their parents and sat back to see what would happen. If they died we hadn’t lost anything; if they didn’t it was a bonus.
Well, they didn’t. They had a quiet, sick looking winter but, seemingly overnight, they’ve all shot up in height and every plant is now sporting delicate white flowers that hint at fruit to come.
I had read that strawberry plants are better in their second year in the ground, and I’m hoping that this is the proof we need. Perhaps we were right to give them a second chance.
Fingers crossed.
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Strawberries get better the longer they’re in the ground – persevere, and you should get loads this year and next!
Oh dear – you aren’t supposed to crop first year strawberry plants but give them a year to get established. You’re supposed to remove the flowers to let them get their roots down.
I have also found that regular application of fertiliser helps (organic chicken pellets once a month in my case with seaweed if extra nitrogen seems necessary) along with a good mulch of decent compost in the autumn. Strawberries seem to like a rich soil and regular feeding for good cropping.
A neighbour gave me half a dozen strawberry plants which I planted out in March. I’ve already got large green fruit on most of them! I don’t know if plants need to re-establish themselves if moved, but it doesn’t seem as though mine do!
Oh! Oh. I know you don’t get much off the first-year plants, but I had no idea you were supposed to remove the flowers to let the roots spread.
Oh well!
I’m very much a novice, but really enjoying growing some of my own fruit and veg.