growing strawberries - is it worth it?

[cornsilkily]

My parents had strawberry plants in the garden and used to get a measly amount of strawberries from them. I've bought a couple to put in my mini greenhouse and am tempted to get some more but don't know whether it's worth it or not.

I think it depends on the soil, amount of slugs and the birds. I used to grow them and would get a fair amount. Straw placed on the ground around them stops the slugs from eating them. I've also read somewhere that the plants have to be replaced after 3 years as they get a fungi though, not sure if this is right.

I'm thinking of keeping them in pots - is that bad?

I'm going to do the same, as well as salad and tomatoes - no problem to grow in pots (or grow bags even?); however I'm going to go for netting to protect as much as poss from slugs, snails and birds! (and cats)

Brilliant in pots, growbags anywhere. Always grow them as nothing tastes like an English strawberry - just as nothing tastes like a Scottish raspberry or a Greek olive.

Choose your varieties wisely, these plants grow, flower, produce fruit in a very short space of time. Greenhouse the almost worse place to keep them, they will have mould before you can say " Strawberries and Cream ".

Put copper tape around your pots, use a good John Innes and feed and water . They are greedy so if you want a good crop you have to be a tad parental !!

Still great that our son will drive around before work to pick them once he knows they are fruiting - cereal bowl in hand !!

copper tape? can I get that from a garden centre?

Yep. Copper tape now widely available.
Gives an electric shock to slugs and snails which they will not want to pass.
Brilliant not only as tape but also as bands for the garden which slot together and protect vulnerable plants until they become established.
Really does work - promise !

You can get copper tape from Green Gardener ~ we tried it last year and it really does work. I was also thinking of getting some copper sheet and cutting it into strips to make collars to go around plants too.

They also work well in hanging baskets, just keep a net handy for the birds

Pots are great, especially long ones that you can place on windowledge out of the way of slugs. Just watch the watering because they like constant access but if you over-water they can rot.

Strawberries fall into different categories depending on when they fruit, so if you plant an early, mid and late you will have strawberries all summer. Several plants can be placed close to each other, a windowledge length planter has space for 3-5 plants.

I grew some in pots last year ...I got a lovely crop of 5 strawberries

I grow strawberries on my allotment. They are definitely worthwhile. I have a lot of plants so had a huge crop last year. We are still working our way through last year's strawberry jam.

This is really helpful as we've just bought our first strawberry plant and a pot to put it in. Will look out for copper tape - would it be evil of me to ask if it would give a shock to next door's cat and keep the poo-ing little demon off our garden?

Couple of plants is no where near enough. I have a long row (started with 6 plants and they sprout runners like mad.
You do have to be hot with the pest control (everything likes to eat them) and trying to keep them off without using chemicals isn't easy.
I get an awful lot of woodlice so have to be quick to pick them the second they are ripe or they get eaten before I can.
Absolutely worth it for the taste though. Try getting a couple of different varieties to extend your growing season. But you will need more than 2 plants that's for sure!

God yes, do grow them, very rewarding. Not had many problems with pests.
They get tired after 3 years and you need to cull the older plants who only grow tiny baby size not so sweet berries and let the younger offshoots provide your crop. The trick with strawbs is the regular culling of old plants, or you end up with measley harvests, as OP's parents found.

We grow them at our allotment, and have expanded the number of plants due to the profusion of runners (we also gave some of the runners to other plot holders). We get loads, make jam with some and walk through the allotment during the strawberry time on the way to and from school so we can pick them, and dd2 can scoff loads there and then. Can't recommend them highly enough!

I've got over 150 plants (my father painstakingly put them in)

I'm expecting a decent crop this year

lljkk - 'The trick with strawbs is the regular culling of old plants, or you end up with measley harvests'...um...how do I cull them?

You grow new plants from the runners and then dig up the old and replace them with the new

gillybean- bear with me... runners? how do i do this?

They go really well in hanging baskets. They are safe from the slugs up there andthe strawberries don't get soggy as they ripen.

Runners are the plant sending out a stalk like thing on which a baby plant grows.It can survive without roots as the parent plant is feeding it (as it's attached) but it's hoping to find somewhere to root into.

That's where you come along. If it's rooted into soil you can dig it up as a baby plantlet already rooted. If it hasn't got anything to root into (mine grow beside a path so send runners accross the path) put a plant pot under it and fix it over the pot it so it can happily root into it. When it has a few roots cut the stem from the main plant and you have a new plant! So you can make a new row of strawberries and replace older plants with the bab ones from teh runners.

Thank you! Very patient! I will try this!