Saturday, June 9, 2012

Rejuvenating the Strawberry Bed

Strawberries are perennials, but after three years they really don't produce much. Basically the strawberry bed needs to be redone at that point. I don't like to lose production. So for the June bearers I redo part of the bed every year. My beds were all created last spring a year ago. I had ten plants. Those plants were put in along the front of the bed at about a spacing of a foot apart. The rest of the bed got filled in by runners. It was a lot of work, but I pulled any runners that weren't on the one foot grid. Well mostly. They do get out of hand. Both the Earlyglow and the Sparkle send out massive quantities of runners. And it is a weekly chore to snip off all the runners as they start to form.

This year once the Earlyglow finished producing berries, I pulled up the front half of the bed and cleaned up all the debris. I added some fertilizer and a layer of compost. Then I took the runners from the other plants and spaced them. I have some stakes that I use to make sure they are put in the right spots and don't move. All the other runners I don't want. But Donna has asked for some to start a bed. So I'll let some grow and have her come in and dig them up as soon as they start rooting.

I'm not really sure yet how I'll redo the everbearers. They produce all year long so there is no down time to rip them up. I'm thinking maybe do a quarter of the bed every year and rotate it around. My everbearer, Seascape, doesn't send out nearly as many runners. So replacing plants is more problematic too. I'm sure if I still have strawberries in ten year I'll have it all figured out. But for now it is my first time growing the day neutral types.

8 comments:

  1. That's interesting. I'm not yet seeing runners, which has sort of put my new bed plans on hold. We'll just wait for now. The everbearers apparently need a Godlike figure to make decisions.

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  2. My strawberries don't grow well in the heat, in fact all the the small soft fruits don't do well for me here.

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  3. Very nicely done. I have the worst time pulling up any plants.

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  4. I snip off the runners of my everbearers and root them out in a somewhat crowded nursery area (or large pot) during the summer and then in the fall, I start a new bed. I have two patches and every other year, the oldest opatch is removed and a new one is rotated in using the rooted out runners. I am on an off year this year so there is no starting or planting up of a new bed. The oldest bed is two years old currently and the other was started this spring from purchased starts (new variety I wanted to try - Fort Laramie).

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  5. For some reason I got hardly any runners this year - usually I have heaps. Not sure why - perhaps because I want to move them and wanted the runners for a new location and they somehow found out....

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  6. I didn't know this. Thanks for sharing. Keep us informed, I am thinking of starting a strawberry bed in the next year or two.

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  7. I've been lobbying to start a strawberry bed also, but the Gardener's been reluctant since spreading plants take advantage of our lack of vigilance. Now we know what goes into your steady harvests of luscious looking strawberries!

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