How to Grow Strawberries at Home
June-bearing, ever-bearing, day-neutral and Alpine berries
Great for home gardeners, strawberries come in several different varieties. Here are some tips to starting your own patch.
When it comes to small fruit, you can’t beat the versatility of the strawberry. They taste great fresh from the vine or in desserts, such as strawberry pie or strawberry shortcake. Strawberries freeze well or can be easily made into jams, jellies or preserves.
Strawberries are plentiful in our area. You can buy them by the quart or flat at fruit stand or visit a u-pick farm to harvest your own. But growing strawberries at home is a simple task that is rewarding for hobby gardeners.
Which type to choose?
There are four types of strawberry plant -- June-bearing, ever-bearing, day-neutral and Alpine strawberries--and several varieties within each category.
June-bearing strawberries are the traditional strawberry that produce fruit in mid-June. They produce only one crop per year and begin setting their buds for the next year in the fall when the hours of sunlight decreases.
Despite their name, ever-bearing strawberries do not bear fruit continuously. Instead, they produce a crop of strawberries in June and another in August. But both crops combined is typically smaller than with the June-bearing berries.
Day-neutral strawberries produce berries in six-week cycles from June through September. Although these plants are highly productive, they can be more labor-intensive as the picking season in extended and the plants themselves are more delicate.
Some of main varieties or June-bearing strawberries grown in the Midwest are the Earliglow, which produce early; the Huneoye, which has a very large berry that’s good for freezing; and Allstars and Jewels.
Learn from the masters
Commercial strawberry fields and u-pick strawberry farms are always so neat in appearance. The reason for this is not just aesthetics. The neater they are, the more successful they will be. The rows are kept clear of weeds to help discourage some diseases such as black fungus. Straw in put down between the rows to keep moisture in the soil, reduce weed growth and prevent the aisles from getting too muddy during picking time. Straw is also used to cover the plants in the winter to prevent winter injury to the crowns.
Most large scale strawberry operations have irrigation systems. These not only keep the berries watered, but can be used to protect the plants from frost. They can also be used to cool the berries on really hot days. If we get some hot weather, the strawberries ripen quicker and that shortens the season. The strawberry season typically lasts about 28 days.
What you need to know
Strawberries are heavy eaters so they should be fertilized well. They grow best in loose soil with a pH of between 6 and 6 1/2. For home growers, I recommend getting a soil sample done. In most counties, you can take a sample into the County Extension office. Once you know what you’re working with, you can make any necessary adjustments to the soil.
The most important thing for home growers is to start with good, quality plants. Some of the mail order places can be questionable. I would recommend getting your crowns from a reputable grower.
Although the berries are full of visible seeds, strawberries don’t typically propagate by seed. Instead, the plant sends out runners that produce a crown, the start of another plant. Strawberries are so prolific that managing the runners and new crowns can be a challenge to home growers. A berry patch can quickly become overgrown and an overgrown patch is unproductive.
The plus side to that is that a home grower can increase the size of their strawberry patch without buying new starts. Just snip the new crowns off of the runner and re-plant them where you want them.
