Quote:
Originally Posted by Baizanator
Just ordered my strawberries today. We have a big bed in the front yard and my wife loves strawberries so we are putting out 50 plants. I hope they do well. Any secrets I should know as a first-time grower?
I ordered from Park Seed. We ordered 25 each of Ft. Laramie and Surecrop.
|
Surecrop is a June Bearing, and Laramie is an Everbearing. The Surecrop shouldn't be allowed to produce this year. Next year you should get up to a quart per plant. You need to pinch off any flowers, otherwise next year's crop will really suffer.
Laramie is an Everbearing, so you should get two crops the first year (August & September) and three the second year (mid-June, late-July, & early Sept). You need to pinch off any blossoms for the first 60 days, or you will have very poor yields the first year. Also, you should keep the runners clipped off, unless you want more plants. Each plant will produce 3-4 runners at a time. If you want to propagate new plants, then only let one grow. Runners take energy away from fruiting. I covered a lot of other material in the links I posted. You are going to get what is called bareroot from Parks, so I would suggest reviewing
Starting a New Strawberry Bed which covers planting bareroots. Also, Everbearing is a 3-year plant, but production really drops in year 3. You will need to be
Propagating Strawberry plants from Runners every other year in order to maintain your patch. There's also a pdf I did on
Renovating a Strawberry Bed which is extending the life of Junebearing plants.
Hope this helps,
Hotwired
http://www.hotwiredgardens.com/