Can someone talk to me about growing strawberries.

[Paranoidandroidmarvin]

Am I too late to start this? Am I too early. Any tips on how to grow or pot types.

Can I grow them now straight outside. Or do I have to start indoors and harden off. Any help would be amazing

I have a cold frame. Can I use that?

I probably won't be much good, as I manage to kill mine EVERY TIME.

But... It is technically late to start, but could try. Meant to grow indoors/greenhouse as they don't like the frost, so could try straight outside? As they start to shoot, need to add some straw or bark so the leaves and fruit don't get wet as they don't like that. That's mainly my problem as I let my 3 year old water everything and she's probably drowned them.

Hope you have better luck than us!

You should be OK this year as long as you get decent plants (within the next week or so) and then use the runners from these later on this year to increase your stock for next year. I've got them in pots, a strawberry bed and growing wild as ground cover in the garden. The pots & bed need watering, the bed needs strawing (as pp said) and the pots just need the fruit hanging over the side so they're not in contact with the soil.

And I forgot to say, the plants will only give a good crop for about 3 years or so, year 2 being the mist productive, that's why you should grow more plants from runners each year so you've hot a continuous rotating stock.

We bought some strawberry plants last week and put them in tubs. Not sure how they will do. But it's a sunny spot they are in so fingers crossed.

As above - buy plants, plant them out with more space, make sure they don't dry out, and expect to lose some to the local wildlife. I've used straw and not used straw and it's not made a lot of difference. Just keep it simple and do what works for you.

So I’m too late from seed?

Buy plants rather than growing from seed. They’re hardy so no need to start indoors unless that’s where they’ve been grown so far. I grow mine in 8inch pots, it keeps the berries off the ground and it takes longer for the slugs to find them. I apply tomato fertiliser weekly.

The plants will produce runners with a tiny new plant at the end. If you want to increase the number of plants for next year, peg the plantlets down to the soil so they root, leave them attached to the main plant until they are well rooted. If you don’t want to increase the number of plants, cut the runners off

Too late to get fruit this year. In fact I think you wouldn’t get fruit till the second year anyway if you start from seed

Been out and bought some plants from the garden centre. So excited. Sadly.

I read somewhere that poached egg plants are good to plant with others. Is this one that I can use for the strawberries. To help with things feeding off the strawberries