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Do strawberries need holes in the pot?
Strawberry planters are vessels used for growing your favorite fruits (and other plants!), and this project helps you expertly create your own at home. Updated on March 29, 2021 Photo: Courtesy of Home Depot Reminiscent of medieval herb planters fashioned from cracked wine jars, a strawberry pot is the perfect planter for growing a collection of plants in a small area.
Where is the best place to put a strawberry pot?
Planting strawberries in pots – Bare root strawberry crowns are the most affordable option when it comes to growing strawberries. They can be planted out in late March or early April, but they are unlikely to crop the first year. Meanwhile, transplants will offer immediate foliage to your pots and bear fruits a few weeks after planting.
Though compact and easy-going, strawberry plants do not appreciate crowded conditions. Two to three plants will be sufficient for a pot of 12–14 inches in diameter. Use a 50:50 mix of high-quality, well-drained potting mix and loamy, multi-purpose compost. Place strawberry plants in pots so their roots are covered and their leafy crowns are above soil. Keep well-watered, especially when your plants are fruiting, but make sure they don’t sit in soggy soil. Position pots in full sun (unless growing Alpine strawberries, which like shade) and try to rotate the containers every few days to ensure your plants grow evenly. Feed young plants a slow-release, organic fertiliser every three to four weeks. Add a layer of straw between the crowns and compost to reduce weeds and keep your fruits perfectly clean. Alternatively, you could grow plants through small openings in weed-suppressing membrane.
Invest in some netting to deter pests. Photo: Shutterstock
How big of a pot is needed for strawberries?
Growing Strawberries in Containers It’s hard to beat the treat of juicy fruit picked at perfect ripeness, straight from the plant. But what if you don’t have enough sun or space to grow fruiting trees or shrubs in your yard? Give strawberries a try! They’re small enough to plant in a pot, and when you choose the right kind, they can produce delicious fruit through much of the growing season.
Besides being a great choice where there’s little or no garden space, keeping strawberries in containers makes it easier to protect the fruits from slugs and many animal pests, and the good air circulation around their leaves can help to prevent disease problems. Growing potted strawberries on your deck, patio or balcony also makes it a snap for you to keep an eye on the maturing berries and catch them at the peak of ripeness for picking.
With their lush leaves, pretty white or pink flowers, and colorful fruits, strawberry plants are also quite attractive, as well. Regular (hybrid) strawberries come in a couple of different types. “June-bearers” produce an abundance of berries over a period of a few weeks in late spring or early summer, then send out lots of runners (slender, horizontal stems with small plantlets).
- Varieties sold as “ever-bearing” or “day-neutral” usually produce moderate amounts of berries in late spring and early fall, often with some during the summer, too, if the weather’s not too hot.
- Ever-bearing and day-neutral varieties, such as ‘Seascape’, ‘Temptation’ and ‘Tristar’, tend to be the best choices for containers, because they bear fruit during their first year, and you get an extended harvest period.
They do produce runners, but usually not as vigorously as June-bearing types. Alpine strawberry ( Fragaria vesca ) plants look similar to regular strawberries, though their flowers and fruits are much smaller, and they stay neat and bushy, with no runners.
- While the berries are intensely flavorful, they’re somewhat delicate and don’t ship well, so you’ll rarely find them sold in grocery stores.
- Fortunately, it’s no trouble to grow these pretty plants in pots, which means you can enjoy these gourmet treats over a period of months right outside your door.
‘Alexandria’, ‘Improved Ruegen’ and ‘Mignonette’ produce red fruits; ‘White Soul’ and ‘Yellow Wonder’ bear creamy-white to pale-yellow berries. Strawberries can adapt to a wide variety of containers, from 6- to 8-inch pots for individual plants to larger planters, such as wooden or plastic half barrels, for multiple plants.
- They grow in hanging baskets and window boxes too.
- You can also find “strawberry jars,” which are upright planters with multiple small pockets in the sides to hold the plants.
- It’s difficult to water these sorts of containers effectively, however, so they often produce disappointing results.
- Fill the container you’ve chosen with a soil-less potting mix, then add the plants.
Set the container in a site with plenty of light; at least eight hours of sun a day is ideal for good fruit production, though alpine strawberries can do well even with just six hours of sun. Water as needed to keep the roots evenly moist if rain is lacking.
- Every two weeks or so from late spring to late summer, give your strawberries a dose of liquid fertilizer, mixed according to the directions on the package.
- In many areas strawberries can survive the winter outdoors in their container and sprout again in spring.
- The hybrid types get crowded quickly, though, and eventually stop producing fruit.
If you’re growing ever-bearing or day-neutral types, you may just want to treat them as annuals and plant new ones each spring to keep them fresh and productive. Alpine strawberry plants can last for many years, but it’s a good idea to divide the clumps every three years or so in early to mid-spring and replant them in fresh potting mix.
How many strawberries per day?
5 A Day fruit portions A portion is 2 or more small fruit – for example, 2 plums, 2 satsumas, 2 kiwi fruit, 3 apricots, 6 lychees, 7 strawberries or 14 cherries.
What is the best thing to put under strawberries?
Apply straw mulch in the fall – Apply straw mulch over strawberry plants in the late fall to prevent winter injury. Mulch saves the plants from drying out or being killed by cold winter temperatures. It also retains soil moisture the following spring and summer. If strawberries are left uncovered in the winter, their crowns can be damaged or killed by temperatures below 12°F.
Apply mulch once soil temperatures have been 40°F or below for 3 consecutive days, which is the threshold at which the plants enter dormancy. In Minnesota, this occurs between November and December. Do not apply mulch until the plants are dormant. Spread straw at a rate of 2.5 to 3.0 tons per acre, covering the plants by 2 to 3 inches. Very small operations can hand-apply straw, but most farms are large enough that they need to use a mechanical mulcher that grinds (“fluffs”) and blows the straw over the rows.
Should you put straw around strawberry plants?
Strawberry plants are considered a tender perennial on the prairies and require additional winter protection to survive our extreme winter temperatures. Mulching with straw is necessary to protect the crop from low tem- perature injury to crowns and shallow root systems.
Do strawberries need air to stay fresh?
Should strawberries be stored in an airtight container? – It depends. If your berries are whole, storing them in an airtight container could actually cause them to mold quicker due to trapped moisture. The best way to store a bunch of whole berries is to loosely place them—in a single layer if possible—in an open container lined with paper towels.
- A berry bowl or colander works great for this because it lets air circulate around the berries! The paper towels absorb moisture to keep the berries nice and dry.
- Sliced or hulled strawberries, however, are different.
- Once they’ve been cut into, strawberries should always be stored in an airtight container to keep the flesh from drying out and bacteria from growing.
Berries don’t last nearly as long once sliced so it’s best to keep them whole as long as possible.