[LILLILEAF]

I have a few dozen strawberry plants some are in the ground others are in hanging baskests,but we only seem to get the odd handful,not enough to do any thing like jam or strawberry ice cream.
 Am i buying the wrong ones to grow and produce fruit.

[grinling]

mine are mainly from last years runners. polytunnel was quite wet and still is a bit damp.

[adri123]

What I want to know is how to set up a hydroponics DIY system.  Why can't we home growers emulate what the commercial folk do?

Adri

[Aunt Sally]

John has some good advice on growing strawberries:

Growing Strawberries - How to Grow Strawberries - Allotment & Gardens

[sunshineband]

Lillileaf, did you get plenty of flowers and now not all that much fruit?. If so, it could be that the fruits are being stolen as soon as they swell but are still green… voles! They can tunnel up under nets too

We grow our strawberries in long troughs, which stay out on the plot until all the flowers have been fertilised and then they come into the polytunnel to let the fruits fully develop and ripen. When they have finished fruiting, they go back outside again, with a little Blood Fish & Bone tickled into the soil surface. After three years they go in the compost. There is a succession of plants from runners as replacements... I need to remember to label them though, as we have several varieties that fruit at different times

Hope that helps a bit... until we adopted this method we had a measly harvest very year, which was very dispiriting

[rowlandwells]

we set our new strawberry bed two yeas ago because the other bed was getting tired how we set ours up was obviously cultivate the bed first adding well rotted cow manure then covering the hole are with grown cover breathable sheeting

we then cut holes in the sheeting and planted the strawberry plants at the appropriate distance and I have to say the second season has produced loads of good sized strawberries variety Cambridge very please with the cropping this year 

[Goosegirl]

My OH took over our strawberry growing last year and planted the new ones (Elegance) in troughs which certainly prevents them getting nibbled by slugs and snails. He followed James Wong's feeding advice and uses a solution of dilute molasses every now and then. As we haven't grown these before, whether it's that or what but they sure taste good!

[DHM]

Strawberry plants don't produce heavy crops in their 1st year, but they should pick up over the next 2 or 3 years, lots of busy leafage sprouting from the centres. I've had a small clutch of strawbs from my 6 plants  (in hanging baskets) but the Cambridge Favourites have sent out runners so they're going to be next years hatchlings, the ones I've got will be kept for 3 years on a 4 yr rotation. Hopefully this approach will keep me in strawberries for years to come...

[Nobbie]

I bought some perpetual fruiting strawberries as small plants back in March/April and planted two in each 10" square pot with a mixture of Lidl compost and a bit of soil from the garden. They're fruiting heavily now with big fruit and more flowers coming. Very impressed with them. I also got some early ones and planted them out on the allotment, but nipped out the flowers on these as they are growing more slowly in open ground and didn't need the fruit this year as I still have the old bed in production. Look very nice healthy plants now despite the lack of rain.

I suspect the heavy clay soil with plenty of nutrients in it is what strawbs prefer. What's your soil like?