Helpful Tips for Growing Great Strawberries

Dan Fruits, Specialty Crops, This Land of Ours

Some helpful tips for growing great strawberries. That’s coming up on This Land of Ours.

Strawberries
Strawberries bed covered with protective mesh from birds. / Shutterstock

Aside from good soil, steady water, and six-plus hours of sun a day, there are a couple of things that can help strawberry plants yield more and continue to thrive.

One recommendation is to get rid of the first blossoms of the plant so that it’ll spend more energy developing strong roots as opposed to producing fruit. Plants should be about ten inches apart, so that might mean transplanting or getting rid of some daughter plants here and there. In general, the fruit will be ready about a month after blossoming.

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For inside plants, make sure they are kept in sunlight, at least, six hours a day. And, stay up on routine waterings. For outside plants, if temperatures are going to drop below freezing, it’s best to cut the plants down to about one inch in early winter (around the first frost) and protect plants with a thick layer of mulch. Also, outside plants may need some sort of protection from birds, who don’t mind a strawberry snack or two.

Some of the best strawberry varieties to grow include: June-bearing, day-neutral, ever-bearer, and Alpine.

Listen to Cathy Isom’s This Land of Ours program here.

Helpful Tips for Growing Great Strawberries