Growing Strawberries - how to grow your own strawberries

Growing strawberries is so easy you don't even need a garden to grow these luscious berries successfully.

Strawberries will grow quite happily in pots, tubs and most types of containers. And by careful selection of varieties you can have strawberries from late spring to well into autumn 

If you're growing strawberries for the first time choose a sunny spot where the soil is  free draining but doesn't dry out too quickly. Strawberries like plenty of moisture but hate standing in waterlogged soil.

Make sure you prepare the ground where you're growing strawberries by digging over the soil deeply and adding plenty of garden compost or decayed manure. Strawberry plants will also benefit from an organic fertilizer dressing such as seaweed meal or fish and bone meal. 

Before planting your strawberry plants remove all perennial weeds. Allow 10inches between plants and 12 inches between rows. 

Growing strawberry plants of early, mid-season, late and autumn fruiting variety will give you a good crop over several months.

New strawberry plants are best planted in late summer to allow them to become well established before winter. This applies particularly if you are growing early strawberries and to those grown under cloches for an extra early crop. 

If you're growing strawberries of later varieties these can be planted in early winter and again in spring. Spring planted varieties will not crop as heavily in their first summer as those planted the previous year.

When growing strawberries always buy your plants from a reputable supplier or specialist nursery.

It is important to start with clean stock as virus disease quickly leads to poor crops and undersize fruit. There is no cure for virus except to destroy the plants and start again in fresh ground with clean stock.  

 Traditionally, straw was put down around strawberry plants in spring to protect the fruit from being spoiled by mud splashes, and to keep down weeds. Unfortunately, straw attracts pests such as slugs, snails and woodlice, which eat the fruit. Strawberry mats around each plant are better and you can get strawberry mats from most garden retail shops. 

You can try other sorts of mulches to put around growing strawberry plants including black plastic and even newspaper. The strawberries will need to be covered with netting to keep birds off.

Strawberry plants need plenty of water after the first fruits have set. So water well if the weather is dry at this time. 

During late summer and autumn your strawberries will start producing new plants on runners and these can be used to make up fresh beds.  

Strawberry plants should be replaced every 3 years as the soil becomes exhausted and the crop size diminishes dramatically. It is a good idea to plant up a fresh bed each summer using the strongest runners. That way you will always have a good supply of top quality fruit.