Growing strawberries

Recently a reader posted a question as follows: "I need some help please. If you would. I live in N. Idaho and for the love of me, I cannot grow strawberries. Yours seem to flourish with great wonder. Could you please post about how you plant, fertilize and water your berries so that they produce so well. I've put in new plants. Used berry fertilizer and sometimes manure. Mulched and watered regularly and still nothing. I very much would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions. Thank you."

Oof. That's a tough one because, I'm sorry to say, I don't do anything special for the strawberries once they're established (except to protect them from the deer, of course). I don't mean to sound flippant, but I've just never had any problems with them (except for the deer, of course).

That said, here's how we prepare strawberry beds and strawberry plants.

In both our previous home and our current one, our native dirt is heavy with clay – sticky mud in the spring and rock-hard in the summer. That's one of the reasons we gave up trying to grow anything in the ground and switched to raised beds. To these raised beds, we add a 3-2-1 mixture of native dirt, compost, and sand (three parts dirt, two parts compost, one part sand), plus any enhancements we have on hand (leaves, composted sawdust, etc.). The sand is a permanent way to keep the clay broken up; the compost obviously adds nutrients; and the native dirt is the most economical medium since we already have it. Now that we have livestock, future compost will come from our own animals.

When building our gardens, since we're working on a large scale, we'll often bring in sand and compost by the dump-truck load from landscaping companies. Sometimes we'll even bring in topsoil (which, for the record, is often no better than the native dirt; we've been known to dub it "top clay").

With these elements mounded up, Don will use the tractor to mix. He'll scoop the 3-2-1 ratio of elements into a pile with the tractor bucket, then use the tractor rototiller to mix thoroughly. Once this is prepped, he'll bucket it up and scoop it into the raised beds.

Since strawberries are a permanent plant, and since soil settles over time, we tend to overfill the strawberry beds to allow for that. Then it's a matter of planting the strawberries.

If you buy bareroot strawberry plants, begin by soaking the bundle of plants in water for a couple of hours to rehydrate the roots and break dormancy. After this, trim a couple inches off the bottom of the roots. Trimming not only allows plants to be planted more easily, but it allows the roots to be fanned out properly for best results (less crowding). It also stimulates root growth. Here are two plants: Top with untrimmed roots, bottom with trimmed roots.

When planting, scoop out a hole and fan out the roots. Don't bury the crown of the plants. Pat firm and voilà.

I used to mulch strawberries, but I don't any longer. Mulching seems to prevent runners from taking roots; and the more runners that take root, the quicker the plants will create a thick canopy and shade the soil from getting too dry. In essence, left alone, strawberries become self-mulching.

I never fertilize my strawberries. It's not that I'm opposed to it; it's just that I never think about it, and they seem to produce well despite that. The most I'll do is add compost in the spring; and even then, often I don't.

The big debate in the strawberry world is June-bearing vs. everbearing. I prefer everbearing because I like getting fruit the whole summer. However I've come to prefer everbearing for another reason, and this is purely anecdotal.

In our last garden, we had both everbearing and June-bearing varieties. The everbearing strawberries, once they were established, produced loads and loads of berries, year after year after year. The June-bearing beds produced heavily for the first three years, and then sorta gave up. The plants were perfectly healthy, but they produced no fruit. As in, zero. After three years of no fruit, it got to the point where I just ripped them up and used the beds for something else. I don't know if I did something wrong with those strawberries, or if June bearers tend to do that anyway, but I've come to prefer everbearing. Just my two cents.

In summer weather, I water the strawberries often – every day if the weather is hot, and every couple of days if the temps are moderate.

Right now I have two varieties of strawberries: My beloved Fort Laramies, and some Ozark Beauties I'm experimenting with (and so far am very pleased by).

I don't know if this information will be helpful to the reader, but I hope so.