My first year of being a plot holder has so far gone better than my expectations, there have been one or two set backs such as discovering club root but on the whole I am more than pleased with what I have grown and I am especially pleased with how it tastes - shop brought stuff just isn't a patch on what comes off the plot
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One of the things that I was keen to try to grow in my first year was strawberries but not knowing the best way to proceed I decided to experiment a little. I purchased four different types of Strawberries in packs containing six plant and after a little research I decided to put two of the packs in to separate raised beds and use straw beneath the fruits, a net was placed over the raised bed when the fruits started to ripen, the other two packs went directly into the soil, for these I heaped up the soil to form a row, flattened off the tops of the heap a little, covered this with a permeable ground membrane and cut slits at 18" spacing and planted the strawberries through the membrane, I pegged the ground membrane down with a net tunnel and left the netting open, pushing the netting down one side of the hoops until just before the fruits started to go red at which time I stretched the netting over the hoops to cover the Strawberries and keep the birds off.
What I found was that by far the best results came from the plants in the ground, these plants had more fruit, bigger fruit and did not suffer any problems whatsoever with pests, the membrane also worked very well in keeping the weeds suppressed. My thoughts as to why the better results came from the plants in the ground.......the roots of the plants in the ground had nothing to constriction them and it was easier to keep them well watered - the raised beds tended to dry out quite quickly.
It would be great to hear the thoughts from the more experienced growers on these findings.
I have also propagated one runner off each plant with the intention of creating three more rows of strawberries, planted using the more successful ground membrane technique this leads me onto my questions (finally I hear you say
)........ the site where I am going to put the new rows of strawberries is currently planted with main crop potato's and runner beans, so I am going to have to wait for this crop to finish before I can plant out the strawberries, what is the latest time that I can plant out the strawberries? If it is too late in the season to plant out the strawberries what is the best way to keep the plants for planting out next year? Are there any special requirements needed to over winter the strawberries in the ground?