Interactive lesson

Strawberries, step by step

Interactive lesson: from a healthy plant and a 1 m (3 ft) bed to planting with the crown at soil level, picking in June, runners and a four-bed rotation.

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The whole lesson as text

1. Type and plants

First choose the type of strawberry, then a healthy plant from a nursery.

Summer-fruiting or everbearing — Summer-fruiting varieties crop once, for 3–4 weeks in June and July. Everbearers crop from June until frost, in flushes.
Combine the types — For a family: 2/3 summer-fruiting for a big harvest and preserving, and 1/3 everbearing for fresh strawberries from July to October.
A reputable nursery — Buy your first planting with a variety label and plant passport (in the US and Canada, certified virus-tested stock). Cheap plants without a label carry viruses and mites.
A good plant — A thick, healthy crown, at least 8–10 mm on cold-stored plants, and light-coloured, fresh roots with no rot. Plant a cold-stored plant the same day or the day after it thaws.

Why: Strawberries easily pick up viruses, mites and root diseases that you cannot see on the young plant. So buy your first planting from a reputable nursery. After that you can propagate from a healthy planting yourself.

For jam and freezing choose varieties with dark flesh (Senga Sengana). For eating fresh choose large, sweet ones (Honeoye, Albion).
If you have room for only one bed, plant half early and half late variety, so picking stretches over five or six weeks.

2. Site and bed

Strawberries want sun, clean soil and a bed that stays for 3–4 years.

Full sun — At least 6–8 hours of sun a day. In shade the fruit is sour and rots.
Mind the rotation — Don't plant where potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, aubergines or strawberries have grown in the last 3–4 years. Best after beans and peas, onions or a green manure.
Compost in good time — 3–5 cm of mature compost (30–50 L per m²), mixed in shallowly, 2–4 weeks before planting.
Bed dimensions — A bed 1 m (3 ft) wide, with two rows of plants; rows 40 cm apart, 30 cm from the edge. A 50 cm (20 in) path between beds.

Why: In shade strawberries make more leaves, and the fruit is sour and rots. Soil-borne diseases linger after related crops, so rotation matters as much as compost.

On heavy soil raise the bed 15–20 cm (6–8 in). The soil should be loose, humus-rich and free-draining, pH 5.5–6.5.
Clear couch grass and bindweed before planting; they cannot be got out of a strawberry bed.