Strawberries

Hi All.Myself like a lot of members have suffered losses in garden with beast from the east. I planted about 30 bare root strawberries which I purchased and were growing well until beast from the east decimated abour 2/3rd`s of them.
The strawbewrries I grew from runners in pots and therefore stronger have survived. I am reluctant to purchase more bare root at the moment as you never know what weather is around the corner.
If I wait no doubt many poplular varieties will be sold out. Would it be feasable to purchase bare root now and grow on in 9cm or 1 litre pots until say end of March and then plant into strawberry border?? Thank for any info.

 

Are you sure you've lost them? I have strawberries in hanging baskets that have been out all winter. I was confident they'd died, having gone black and crispy. But when I looked yesterday there was new growth on them.

 

Yes.
If in fact your plants do recover, and they may, then you can plant in to baskets or troughs.

 

Assuming you have somewhere you can keep the pots frost free then Yes, its often done and the plants grown on in the greenhouse to give an earlier crop than outdoors, though once the frosts have gone you can plant them into the garden instead, though do 'harden' them off a bit if you have been keeping them in a warm indoor area.

You might need to / be better to use a size larger pot.

 

Thanks for advice. I can hope some of the black strawberries will come back but due to my mistake/negligence some will not. When we had couple of weeks of heavy downpour I should of checked the strawberries.Around some of the strawberries the earth was washed away exposing the roots beneath the crown so I expect the frost got to them.
I thought I had done enougth covering them with 2 layers of fleece but it was such a hard frost that it was not enougth. The fleece was frozen solid and trying to peel them back when it was sunny was a nightmare and it rore easy. Still I will wait & see what happens in the next couple of months.

 

Strawberries are as tough as old boots. My dad grew them for years on his windswept very exposed allotment. About half the allotment was a strawberry patch, all from a few plants he put in years ago, then built up over time from runners.

Unless there's some variety that's less hardy, I think they're as close as it gets to indestructible.