Growing Strawberries in the Garden

Growing strawberries in the garden is a great project for the whole family. If you enjoy gardening with kids, or you're looking for something to grow without too much fuss, then growing strawberries in the garden is for you.

Feed your berry plants the proper fertilizer. Learn more here.

Whether you choose to grow strawberries because you want fresh, organic berries or you're just looking for an easy gardening project, strawberries are a great choice for the home garden. Nothing compares to the juicy, sweet taste of a freshly picked strawberry. Best of all, if you grow them yourself in the home garden you can be sure that no harmful pesticides were used.

Most people treat strawberries as perennials. They plant several strawberry plants in the ground, nurture them, and expect them to return year after year. This works well in most temperate areas, but in the Deep South, strawberries sometimes struggle in the scorching heat. Mulching and watering well helps, or using a special cloth called shade cloth to keep the hot sun off of them. Many gardeners in hot climates prefer to treat strawberries as annuals and replant them year after year. If you plant them in containers or hanging baskets, you will probably need to replant them each year like an annual.

Strawberries are extremely versatile and grow well either in the ground or in containers. They do need full sun, however, and will fail to produce berries if they are too shaded. Wherever you choose to grow strawberries, they need a few simple basics. These include:

• Full sun: At least six or more hours of direct sunlight is required for strawberries.
• Well-drained soil: Strawberries need a lot of water but don't like to stay soggy. Well drained soil is a must. If you are planting strawberries in the ground and you are dealing with a heavy clay soil, compost or peat moss not only enriches the soil but improves drainage as well.

Fertilizer for strawberries is a must. They're heavy feeders, and if not kept well fed they might not produce berries. You can use an organic fertilizer such as kelp meal, compost, or a commercial fertilizer.

Strawberries require one to two inches of water per week, which is more than the average backyard garden gets in a typical summer week. Keep strawberries well-watered, especially after planting them. Many people make the mistake of thinking that because strawberries like their soil well drained, they also don't like to be watered a lot. Well drained and dry are not the same thing. Well drained soil means that water drains quickly away from plant roots, but the soil remains moist. Dry soil means that the entire soil feels dry and crumbly to the touch. Strawberry roots stay fairly close to the surface, so they can't send down deep roots like other plants to gather water from deeper levels in the soil. Keep your strawberries well watered throughout the growing season.

Mulch helps keep strawberry beds moist. Use mulch around the plants to suppress weeds and retain moisture. Good choices for strawberry beds include straw. You can buy mulching straw at garden centers.

The biggest pests most home gardeners have to contend with are birds and slugs or snails. Birds love to eat the rich tasting berries. Bird netting, available at garden centers, keeps birds away without harming them. Slugs and snails may also munch on the berries. These common garden pests can be lured away from strawberries with a variety of organic traps, including a little beer poured into a pan to entice slugs away from fruit and into the pan where they drown.

There are many varieties of strawberries for the home garden. These include:

• June Bearing: As the name implies, these plants bear a heavy crop of fruit in June (or a bit earlier in the south). Berries are large and sweet and great for fresh eating. These plants will send out runners along the ground and create new plants over time if you've planted them in the ground, forming a nice bed of strawberry plants.
• Everbearing: Unlike June bearing strawberries, which produce on heavy crop over a few weeks, Everbearing strawberries produce multiple crops throughout the summer. The trade off is in the size of the berries. Although some Everbearing strawberries are big, most are smaller than June bearing strawberries. They also do not send out as many runners as their June bearing cousins.
• Day Neutral: Day Neutral strawberries are similar to Everbearing strawberries. Again, the fruits are on the small side and may be better suited for jams, jellies and recipes.

If space is limited and you are planting strawberries in strawberry jars, containers or planters, try either Everbearing or Day Neutral strawberries, which take up less space than June Bearing types.

Strawberries can be planted in many creative ways. In addition to traditional garden beds, special planters, called strawberry jars, are often used. These are terra cotta pots with many pockets along the sides. After filling the jar with soil, a strawberry plant is placed in each little pocket so that it hangs out the side. This creates more space to plant more strawberries. Hanging baskets or planter boxes may also be used.

Another favorite for strawberry gardeners is the strawberry pyramid. This is a raised garden bed system that uses circles of plastic or another material to create a stacked pyramid of raised beds. You can build them yourself or buy kits to create a pyramid bed, complete with netting to keep birds away and a sprinkler system for the top.

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