Strawberries are a great way to start growing your own food as they are super easy to care for. A bed of strawberries will last in one spot for around four years and keep coming back every summer.
After around three or four years, it’s a good idea to replant your strawberries. This helps to prevent diseases from building up. Fresh soil is really healthy and nutritious.
Strawberries are perennials. This means that they lie dormant during the colder months and then regrow, flower, and fruit during the summer months. So, if your strawberry plant looks a little tired or has seemingly disappeared during the winter, don’t worry, it will very likely grow back.
Sadly, after around five or six years, strawberry plants can often weaken and eventually die. This is why it’s a good idea to keep some seeds from the strawberries you have already grown in order to grow more plants.
You will be able to tell when the plant is weakening as its fruit production will gradually slow, succumbing to fungus, and its leaves will turn brown. This can be disappointing but it is part of its natural life cycle and it will simply decompose into the soil, providing nutrients for other plants.
Do strawberries flower more than once?
Strawberries grow from the flowers on a strawberry plant. During the summer, the flowers bloom and then the petals fall off. Once the petals have fallen, the berry itself will begin to grow from the center of the flower. Once the strawberry has turned red, you can pick it and eat it.
But what happens next? Strawberry plants can bloom and fruit multiple times throughout the summer period, so don’t think that harvesting is over after just collecting a few berries.
Different stems will also blossom at different times, even on the same plant. So make sure to keep caring for your strawberry plant throughout the summer, as it will continue to bloom and produce fruit until it goes dormant in the winter.
Should I cut my strawberry plants back for winter?
Yes, cutting back your strawberry plant before winter is important for plant health. Cutting back the leaves and stems gives room for newer and healthy leaves to grow.
Make sure to only cut back any brown or dying leaves as these will only rot anywhere. Try not to cut back any healthy leaves, as these will survive and fruit again during the summer.
How do I get my strawberry plant to produce more fruit?
When it comes to encouraging fruit growth, soil is very important. You can encourage flowering from early spring by giving your strawberries high-potash feed. This is feed that contains salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form.
Feed that is high-potash such as tomato feed. Don’t do this every day, every week or so will be enough, depending on the strength and type of feed. Make sure to double check the instructions on the packaging as even the same types of feed can vary, especially in terms of potash percentage.
It’s also important to keep your strawberry plants well-watered. Remember that fruits, especially strawberries, have really high water content. Strawberries have a water content of 91%, sure they are going to need a lot of water to grow well. Water is also important for keeping the plant itself healthy.
Strawberry plants should be watered every day, if not more. Either water from above and give the plant around an inch or two of water. Or you can place a pot with good drainage on a saucer and top the saucer up with water regularly.
This is a good way to tell if your plant needs watering again as you can see the water disappear from the saucer. Whenever the saucer is empty, give the plant some more water.
How do you grow sweeter strawberries?
There isn’t a specific way to ensure that your strawberries are very sweet. Think of when you get a punnet from the grocery store; different strawberries from the same plant can taste slightly different.
That said, it is the sun that develops the sugar in the strawberries. So try to position your strawberries somewhere with good sun coverage. That said, strawberries can actually do well in the shade, so don’t worry if you don’t have a backyard or don’t have a backyard with a lot of sun coverage.
How many times will a strawberry plant produce?
This depends on the type of strawberry plant you have, but most will generally produce fruit three times during the warmer months. This will be once during the spring or early summer, one in midsummer, and one in later summer or even early fall.
Other factors will also include where in the world you are located as your local weather conditions will affect fruit produce. There are also always flukes when it comes to growing fruit, so always be prepared for your plant to fruit more than three times or even less.
Strawberry plants are pretty predictable and easy to care for, so as long as you care for your plant properly, you should be confident that your strawberry plant will bear fruit.
Strawberry plants generally get stronger as the years go on, so each summer they will produce even more fruit. That is until, as mentioned above, strawberry plants will eventually die after around six years, so they will, of course, stop producing fruit after this.
What month is the best to plant strawberries?
This depends on where you live and the local climate. It’s best to plant strawberries in the spring. Try to plant them a while after the threat of frost has passed.
Frost is really damaging for strawberries, especially when they have begun to bloom and grow. If you live somewhere with a long winter, then you will need to plant them later than somewhere with a warmer climate.
Once it has been planted, it’s not a good idea to move it again until it has finished producing fruit. So make sure it is in a good spot before it starts booming.
What do I do with strawberry plants after fruiting?
Once your strawberries are finished fruiting, they need some extra attention. They will go dormant over the winter and colder months, but there is a little preparation needed before they do this.
The first job is to remove the mulch and straw from the base of the plant. This is where a lot of slugs and pests can hide, so it’s important to remove them so that they don’t nestle in and eat away at the plant.
Next, tidy up the leaves, cutting back the dead and brown leaves. Some of the plants in the bed might also have already died, especially if they are older than the other plants in the bed.
Make sure to remove these plants as well. Don’t worry too much if you don’t remove everything as the plant will break down and nourish the other plants. But root rot is still a problem in plant beds, so it’s important that it doesn’t get too full, especially if the other plants have diseases that can spread to other plants.
