Strawberry planters

For the last couple of years, we've tried growing strawberries in those terracotta strawberry planters. With very little success.

My theory is that they can't really get deep enough into the soil.
But it could be that I'm just not looking after them right.

I'm going to have one final go this year, before I give up on it.

Any suggestions for what variety to get, and how best to plant and look after them.

 

I'm going to have a go at strawberries in hanging baskets on the posts of a south facing fence this year - hopefully that will work.

Strawberries are a bit of an odd one though - they have grown on my in-laws patio for years and we tried to move them to a pot one year and they died.

 

I have bought a plastic strawberry tub with a pipe that goes down the middle to aid watering, but I am having real trouble keeping the strawberry plants watered, the water just doesn't seem to be reaching the cups where the plants are. I hope I can master the watering as the tub saves so much garden space, but so far it is a lot of bother.

 

I grow strawberries in those plastic window box style planters. This seems to work quite well, as I can stuff straw around them to protect the fruit and even net them easily if the birds decide to try their luck.

 

I grow mine in large pots outside my back door - much to my grandson's delight - I have had no probs so far but will be buying new plants this year as the last ones I have had for quite a few years and didn't get quite so many last year .... also looking forward to raspberries mmmmm

 

Hi
I am growing strawberries in a self watering planter this year. I think I may have planted 1 too many though.

 

I'm buting an old style victorian planter for me mum for mothers day, this thing take 36 plants and 80 litres of compost so guess whos going to busy on mothers day......ME.

 

Wow - you will be busy Terry - I see you are from Suffolk - I live in the North East but am a Norfolk girl still at heart

Val

 

I've got two terracotta strawberry planters both about 2' tall - I don't think anything smaller is worth it. Down the centre of one I put some well 'scrunched up' chicken wire whilst in the centre of the other is a bit of 1" plastic pipe with loads of holes drilled in it, both help with ensuring the water gets to the roots.

That said, 'proper' strawberry planters can be expensive so I went to 'The Pound Shop', and bought a load of their garden refuse bags, made large slits in them and now grow my strawberries in those. They're not as big as the refuse bags you'd buy in a garden centre, but being being polypropylene, the cuts you've made don't split, they don't rot and the handles mean you can move them about fairly easily.

As for looking after them - stawberries needs lots of water and they also need feeding. New plants seldom produce much of a crop but their yield gradually increases to a peak over 3 - 5 years, before they begin to decline again. I always ensure I peg down as many runners as I possibly can into 3" pots and thus, always have a supply of new plants coming along.

Variety is a matter of choice, whether you want early, summer or autumn fruiting and quite often, what the garden centre or nursery has on offer. For flavour I'd always look for Cambridge Favourite (although they're less disease resistent than many others): Charlotte are autumn fruiting and good for smaller containers. Marmolado are quite good all-rounders and go for Honeyoye if you want an early crop.

As for El Santa - they're best left in their plastic containers in supermarkets, grown mainly because they're reliable croppers and fairly evenly sized, any relation between these and 'real' strawberries is purely co-incidental

 

Thank you.
The one we have is about 2' tall. The pipe and chicken wire ideas are good, I'll try that.
I've always fed them and watered them, but I wonder if they've been too hot. I put them on a south facing patio? Do you think that's too much sun for them?

 

It's difficult to say whether theyr'e getting 'too much sun' - I guess it depends on whether we get a decent summer or not! I've got some strawberries on my south facing decking which (last year) got far too hot for us humans but to be honest, I didn't notice any appreciable difference between those plants and the plants growing elsewhere (i.e. the ones that have to take their chances on a windy north facing corner).

The mistake we make (and I include myself in this), is that because strawberries are a 'delicate' fruit, we (that is, I) convince ourselves that the plants are delicate too - in fact they're as tough as old boots. My 'babies' in their 3" pots were covered for over a fortnight in 2' of snow and, when that went, they were literally frozen solid for over a month. I haven't given them a drop of water since the end of September and yet the majority are sending tiny green shoots up from their centres.

I'm sure you're looking after them perfectly well, providing you give them a damned good drenching every day (they are 80% water after all) so I give my 2' planter a whole 2 gallon can full every day once the fruit starts to appear, more if it's been particularly hot. 'They' say you should feed with a tomato feed every 10 days or so, I'm not sufficiently organised to keep a note of when the 10 days is up, so mine tend to get fed when (or indeed, if) I remember.

I'm sure your plants won't mind getting hot - think of all those 'pick your own' fields with no shade - if you're really concerned, you could rig up some temporary shade, but I don't think I'd bother.

Just as a BTW - my daughter who's visiting, has just said I look 'pensive', no, I'm just working out the best way to answer this query about strawberries and whether they're getting too hot - my daughter's suggestion is to rub them with cream, preferably of the clotted variety. If I hold her, you're more than welcome to hit her!

 

Thank you. Here's hoping I do better this year.
I remember having strawberry plants in my parents garden as a child, and the grew like weeds there!

My mouth is watering now with thoughs of clotted cream though! LOL

 

How I agree with your daughter !! ... other than that straight off the bush and into mouth !

Val

 

I initially started off with 2 pots filled with multi purpose compost.
In each I put 3 plants.
1st year didn't do too badly for strawberries. Quite a few runners which I now managed to keep 6 plants from those runners :D

At the moment, all plants are thriving and new leaves coming up all the time.
You need to watch that you do NOT cover the crown of the plant with soil. Also you don't want it completly exposed either.

My pots sit on our back patio facing West. Gets plenty of sun in the summer. You need to water strawberry plants often. If there has been no rain, I tend to water well till it runs out the bottom of the pot. Leave it for 2-3 days, water again.

 

A very useful thread for me . I have been given a huge ali-baba terracotta planter from my sister for my 60th. So that is over Fidgetmum's 2 foot rule . After that I know "nowt" about growing strawberries. I presume if I buy some plants from the nusrsery , it is OK to plant them out now ? Should I go for perpetual or summer fruiting types , or a mix of both ? Will they fruit in the first year ? As Fidgetsmum said you dont have an infinite choice of varieties in a nursery , but I can visit a lot of nurserys and GC's on my way from work. So I will keep my eye out for the tips above.