Strawberries.

[feldon30]

What kind of soil do you have? Did you just dig holes in clay soil and plant them? Just curious.

[TZ-OH6]

Its good brown Ohio garden/farm dirt topsoil, I dug up the area well. They should be happy. The night and ground temp are still cool, but the tower warms up in the sun. We've had a week or two in the 60-70s, it hit 80 a couple of days ago.


Higher temps and controlled fertilizer (10:4:13 - all nitrate) probably helped with the fruit production in the tower. The inground plants are busy growing roots, I suspect.

[feldon30]

I think the problem is gonna be pH. Strawberries like relatively acidic soil.

Strawberries love sandy, somewhat acidic soil with lots of peat and compost. I don't think they do well with clay.

[snappybob]

Feldon. I'm planning on growing some strawberries in a whiskey barrel in September. You mentioned that at that time of year you can only buy bare root transplants online. Can you give me a website of a good supplier?

[feldon30]

Indiana Berry has a good selection and website. I will be ordering Quinault in September.

[Ruth_10]

You can grow a decent crop of strawberries in clay, without sand, if you amend it well with horse manure and/or compost. I grow a good crop of Earliglow and a family heirloom and our soil has no sand. Nada.

Ideally you would let the runners set new plants and then every few years remove the older plants. Your strawberry bed would eventually migrate into a new location. Since most people like to keep their beds in more or less the same location, you can let the runners set new plants and then thin out the older ones. I use that newly opened up space to add new compost or aged horse manure to the bed. After the strawberries are finished for the season, I also trim off and remove from the bed the old growth (I have even used a lawnmower to do this). This encourages the plant to put on new growth (= strawberries the following year) and gets rid of older, diseased leaves.

Protection from birds (and raccoons) is an absolute must! I have done the controlled experiment! Any berries that aren't covered are gone, just that quick. I also found that if I didn't use a stiff frame (I use furring strips with chicken wire) but instead used a wire support and bird netting that the raccoons walked all over it and mashed the plants and berries while attempting to get at them.

Feldon, your strawberries look a little on the not-quite-ripe side. If you have them protected from the birds, you could leave them on the vine for another day and they would be sweeter.

[feldon30]

Yes, I had the plants and berries well-protected, so I will let them go another day next time.