Strawberries are yummy and they grow like crazy in your greenhouse and garden. But guess what?  Commercial Strawberries typically  contain more pesticides than any other farm crop and the stats are in again for 2019: Strawberries are once again listed as number one on the list of food contaminated with pesticides. The Dirty Dozen. These are the foods most likely to contain pesticides and one of the strawberries tested this year has 22 chemicals in it!

 

Okay shock factor behind us, what can we do?  Have you seen those little packages of dried out strawberry plants sold at your local garden centre or hardware store? These dormant plants are easy to plant and grow and you can start right away. Last week I made a strawberry planting video with 7-year old twins Rupert and Nathaniel. Yes it’s true. Racing up and down the road on bikes or watching an action video on Netflix probably scores higher in excitement but it was spring break and the twins were visiting. So we planted strawberries. Over 100 pots. Check it out and see the basics of planting these dormant roots. Putting them into 4 ich (9 cm) pots right away means the roots need to be trimmed to fit the pot. It also means you can grow them on until the weather is settled for outdoor planting.

 

Make sure to plant so the top of the plant where the roots meet the leaves  (the crown ) at the top of the pot so there is no sitting water killing roots. Finally, water well. Keep pots in a greenhouse or under grow lights and you’ll get leaves in a week and blooms in two weeks.

 

 

 

What Should You Grow?

 

There are two basic kinds of strawberries for sale. The ones for really short summers bloom only in June and then focus on building leaves for the rest of the summer.  These are known as the June-bearing berries. You pick them early but then they are done for the year. Examples of varieties that are June bearing include Kent, Cavendish, All Star and Totem.

 

Day neutral or ever-bearing types of berries start blooming soon and will bear fruit right away this year – in June and they will keep right on blooming all summer into fall. I was even surprised by a few berries last November. Day Neutrals bear fruit for a long time but the heaviest crop is still in late June with fewer berries after that. New for me this year are Eversweet (zone 5) and Hecker (best for zone 3). Existing in my garden are Tri-Star (listed zone 5 but I got mine from Dean in Saskatchewan so go figure), and an unknown french variety I purchased from a farmer in Saskatchewan. Yummy. Commercially you can also find Fort Laramie (zone 3) and Albion (zone 4). There are also white berries called “Natural White Strawberry” but they need a separate pollinator and I haven’t tried them yet (I have some on order and two whites will be shipped with two Sonata for pollination)

What about soil and containers?

As usual I like to pot these guys up early and  give them the best soil possible which means lots of air and not overly wet. I add a lot of compost and grow them in root pouch bags because with this method I can grow them on in flood trays for easy watering and the roots are able to breathe. I got this idea from a Saskatchewan farmer Dean Kreutzer who is over six feet tall and doesn’t want to bend over so far to pick berries.

 

 

 

Care?

 

Most varieties of strawberries readily sucker with long shoots and this becomes distracting and confusing because main plants and suckers get all tangled up. The suckers usually don’t flower or produce berries in the first year so I try to cut the suckers off early in the season and sometimes in later August I let them fall into little pots where I root them for replanting later. One variety, Tri-Star is basically sucker free so it is simpler to grow but it is almost twice the price of the other Day Neutral strawberries.

 

Even though I combine my own rich compost with potting media like pro-mix, I also like to add a blend of fertilizer copied from Steve Solomon (The Intelligent Gardener) into the mix  before i plant. I do this so that there is plenty of micro-nutrients available to the plants as they grow. Research has shown missing micro-nutrients can lead to disease or insect problems and I don’t want any of that. Let me know if you want a copy of this recipe by emailing me and telling me where you grow.

Watering needs to keep soils moist but never soggy. This is why some people avoid peat moss – they think it keeps the soil too wet. I make sure to use a coarse mix like Promix HP so they are drier than they would be with other finer potting mixes. As I said I also move the potted plants into root pouches as soon as the weather settles so that they can easily get the water they need but also the drainage they love. The brown root pouches I now use are made from recycled plastic water bottles, are washable and will last for years.

 

Over Time

Eventually strawberries need dividing. I do this in the earliest part of spring before they grow a lot. I keep the outer plants because they are the youngest and discard the old woody plants because they will not bloom as much. 

Strawberries are easy to grow and if you start growing your own you will discover how much flavour they have. Forget about eating commercial berries unless they are locally grown by a farmer you trust. Instead, get on it and plant your own berry crop in your garden or in containers. It is easy enough for the 7-year-old grandkids so I think it is possible for everyone!