Growing Strawberries, Tips From The Farm, & Home-grown

[Mark]

This thread refers to the following blog article on Self Sufficient Me - Growing Strawberries, Tips From The Farm, & Home-grown. Ask questions about this article or talk about this topic here. Thanks

 

[Benn]

Nice thread and thanks for this article. Strawberry is my favorite fruit and this information will help me to grow strawberries at home. Anyway nice information.

 

[Mark]

Nice thread and thanks for this article. Strawberry is my favorite fruit and this information will help me to grow strawberries at home. Anyway nice information.

Thanks for that, yeah it's a great fruit isn't it and strawberries are quite easy to grow (petty expensive to buy though). It's end of season where I live, we generally start growing them in autumn but now's the time to collect runners when they appear.

 

[Letsgokate]

Hi Mark, read this post the other day, great read. I can't eat strawberries from the shops, don't agree with me. I have tried growing a few over the years but have never had a lot of success. Thought I would just plant a couple in pots and see how they go. I did buy a few last year that didn't fruit a lot but put out heaps of runners, they were actually a bit of a pain in the area I had them.

What strawberry varieties do you grow? I'm thinking of a medium size, sweet fruit.

 

[Mark]

Unfortunately, some of the shop strawberries are sprayed with too much chemicals and are grown too fast (especially the hydroponic ones). I have found homegrown strawberries to be much sweeter and chem free of course - they might not all grow as big but the flavour is concentrated.

Now is the time to plant strawberries in subtropical Queensland (autumn coming onto spring). The professional growers had the last of their seedlings in about 2 weeks ago. Commercial strawberries are usually sprayed to protect against fruit fly but I have never seen homegrown strawberries stung and the only other pest that you may see is slug or snail damage to the fruit but there's easy ways to combat that problem if it arises.

I like to go with the standard Sweetheart variety but any large or medium sized variety will do - just stay away from the pink flowered varieties, cylindrical shape, or small alpines, because they are pretty but really just a gimmick and don't crop the best. The small type do crop well and taste great but tend to be a bit of a pain to pick and they have to be harvested exactly when ready or they quickly shrivel.

Keep them well watered in pots so they don't dry out and feed them occasionally. I have some in one large pot this season (half barrel) planted in rich home made compost and a sprinkle of organic blood & bone then mulched heavily in cane mulch. Hopefully, they will tumble over the edges of the pot and give lots of fruit as well as look good.

 

[Letsgokate]

Looks great Mark, I will certainly be planting some very soon. Our property has a lot of shade in winter so we are finding the sunny spots for planting. SInce we ahve only been here 6 mths we have to learn about the sun in winter and summer etc.

 

[Mark]

Yes - every yard is different and it's all trial and error!

 

[Letsgokate]

I planted some Sweetheart ones yesterday

 

[Mark]

Good luck with them! The main problem we have here is getting to them before the kids do

 

[bearded1]

I noticed yesterday that I have my first strawberry flowers on;- already!

 

[Ash]

Got some in the small backyard patch that are doing well also but something chews at them as they ripen, and it's not the kids!

 

[Mark]

What does the chew mark look like Ash? If it's deep and half eaten than it could be rodents but if it's smooth and shallow it could be slugs or snails.

 

[Ash]

Deeper - how about birds? We don't seem to have many rodents where we are. I can't remember the last one I saw.

 

[Mark]

You can tell rodents from the scrapping teeth marks but bird damage is more random and jaggard but can be deep. Yes, probably birds I'd say but they don't usually hit unripe fruits.