[Willow_Warren]

Hi,

I was just wondering how close you can grow strawberry plants.

I installed a 1.8m x 0.9m (6ft x 3ft), bed this year, and I want it to all be strawberries.  Currently it has 11 - 12 strawberry plants in there.  So I'm kind of wondering how many plants this bed could  take?

I need to sort some netting out for is so the birds don't steal all my strawberries when they ripen - the amount I spend might have to relate in a little way to the yield I can achieve from the bed at it's optimal capacity (I'm making this sound rather scientific, but really in my head it's not that technical!).

Thanks

Hannah

[Nobbie]

I'd say 17 max, 6 down each long side and offset plant 5 down the middle. Put down plenty of straw to keep the fruit up in the air or the close planting will encourage slugs as there will be plenty of shade.

[JayG]

If you read something like the RHS guide to strawberry spacing your bed is probably already overcrowded, but if you look at traditional strawberry planters they are actually growing quite close together.

Commercial growers really pack them in, but possibly only expect the plants to last a year.

Nobbie's suggestion sounds about the right sort of compromise to me. 

[mumofstig]

Funnily enough, my plot neighbour's strawberry bed was most productive when he left most of the runners to root where they wanted 

No single fruit was large - but there were loads and loads of medium sized ones, So I suppose it depends on what size fruit you want to grow.

[Willow_Warren]

My current 11 plants don't take up the whole of the bed, so I was way off the RHS spacing level!  A total of 17 would just about fill the bed if I continue current spacing, so I guess I'll stick to that and see how it goes!

I've only ever grown them in containers before and yields have not been great, looking forward to seeing if I get better yields from them being in the ground.  Don't think I'll be potting up jars of jam from them though!

Some straw is on my shopping list for protecting the fruit is also on my shopping list.

Hannah

[mjg000]

Planting the strawberries through heavy duty ground cover mesh has worked well for me this year.  I laid down straw around plants in my old strawberry bed and was still pulling up tares several years later!