Growing Strawberries

Strawberries are one of the easiest fruits to grow with our children and pets. If you have never grown strawberries before, prepare your taste buds for an adventure because here’s our planting and harvest guide to strawberries.  

Health Benefits

• Strawberries can protect the skin against UV rays.
• Help to stop organ damage and prevent blood clotting.
• Help in curing common cough and cold.
• Prevent free radical-induced skin damage.
• Fight against cancer and tumor growth.
• May lower the risk of developing diabetes.
• Strawberries help boost digestion and prevent constipation.
• Help to reduce Gout and Arthritis pain.
• Strawberries can prevent eye conditions like dry eyes.
• Help to boost the immune system.
• Help to reduce hypertension and rigidity of arteries and blood vessels.
• Help to maintain the proper functioning of the nervous system.
• Help to battle hair loss and prevent dandruff.
• Help to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease.
• Reduce body weight and fat.

 

Planting Strawberries

Selection of Variety

Your first decision is going to be what type of strawberry do you grow? We have two standard varieties of strawberries. June bearing strawberries have a tight fruiting window in June with lovely big juicy berries. Ever bearing barries don’t bear straight up throughout the year but give two to three sets worth in suitable climates. You can contact your Ag department to choose your strawberry varieties according to your location.

Selection of Site

Strawberries grow best in full sun, but if you have an area with a little part of shade doesn’t mean you shouldn’t grow strawberries. Strawberries need 5-9 hours of sunlight to grow, so select a site accordingly. Strawberries perform best in loamy soils because of their drainage features. You can quickly improve the ground by digging in a lot of organic matter before planting. Compost or well-rotted manure is ideal. A general-purpose fertilizer gives your tiny seedling an extra boost. Strawberries may also be grown in containers, tubs, towers, and even hanging baskets, making them a fantastic flexible fruit.

How to Plant?

Buy your plant in pots or bare-rooted. Set your potted strawberries 20 inches or 50 cm in each direction using a string line as a guide to give neat, straight rows. The crown of the plant where the leaves emerge should set at ground level. For bare-root plants, start by soaking them in water for an hour or so to hydrate them. Remove them from water, then cut back any long, straggly roots. Now dig a hole big enough to accommodate the roots. Hold the crown up at the right level with one hand, and fill the gap with your other hand. Water your strawberries seedling after you settled them in. Strawberries can be planted into containers much close together but will need dividing up and replanting after one season to keep them healthy. Use an all-purpose potting soil and make sure the container has drainage holes in the bottom.    

Care

• Water your plants regularly as they establish and during the dry spells. Try to avoid wetting the leaves when you water to reduce the risk of disease. Container grown strawberries are likely to need watering more often, as the soil can quickly dry out in warm weather.
• Strawberries put a lot of effort into swelling their fruits, so top up soil fertility before plant resume growth.
• Put a mulch of straw in and around the strawberries from early summer before the fruits develop. This will help to keep them weed-free, and the soil retains more water than usual.
• In the first year, cut off any runners to concentrate plants efforts towards fruit production.
• Protect your berries from birds, rabbits, dears and other hunters of strawberries. The best way to protect your harvest is to use netting that excludes birds and allows pollinating insects to pass through.

 

Harvesting Strawberries

Pick your strawberries when they are fully ripe all over if you can pick them on a sunny afternoon when their flavor will be more concentrated. You can store them in a refrigerator, but this comes at the cost of taste, so leave them at a cool room temperature if possible. At the end of the season, give your plants a tidy up. Remove any straw, weed through the bed, and then cut back old foliage to leave just the fresh new growth right at the center of the plant.

• Angular leaf spot(Xanthamonas fragariae)

Tiny water-soaked spots appear on the leaves. Spots are translucent when leaves are held up to the light. Spots enlarge into angular shaped, dark green and eventually dark brown to black spots limited by small veins. Infected calyces turn brown, reducing fruit quality. Management Use only certified strawberry varieties.

• Leaf scorch(Diplocarpon earlianum)

Infects leaves, runner, flowers, fruit, and calyx. Initially appear as numerous purplish-brown blotches. Centres of the spot does not turn tan or white. Lesions join together and may turn bright red. Leaves eventually turn brown, dry and curl up at the edges giving a burned or scorched appearance. Management Use varieties that are resistant to leaf scorch. Plant strawberries in full sun with good air circulation and well-draining soil. Use fungicides if required.

• Powdery mildew(Sphaerotheca macularis)

Infect leaves, flowers, fruits, and petioles. White patches on the lower leaf surface. Infected leaves roll up at the edges exposing the powder growth. Purple to reddish blotches may appear on the lower surface of infected leaves. Management When a sign appears, apply proper fungicides. Use resistant varieties and avoid overhead irrigation.

• Anthracnose Black spot(Colletotrichum nymphaea)

Infects crowns runners, flowers, leaves, and fruit. Infected crowns develop a reddish-brown streak. Infected runners develop sunken, firk, dark elongated lesions. Ripe fruit develops a light brown, water-soaked spot that becomes firm, round, dark, brown to black and sunken. Salmon colored spores may be produced within the lesion. Management Soil fumigation can help reduce soil inoculum. Soil solarization can destroy the soil inoculum. Rotate to non-host crops if irrigation or solarization is not possible.