[sclarke624]

Now let me get my head round this.  When in fruit feed toms, BUT don't feed strawbs or raspberries, when in fruit.  If that is correct funny how tom fruit needs food but the fruit fruit doesn't.

[mumofstig]

Feed strawberries

BBC Gardening:From flowering until harvest, feed the plants every ten days with a product that's high in potassium, such as a tomato feed.

Feed raspberries

Raspberries are a hungry and thirsty fruit. Scatter general purpose granular fertiliser over the soil in spring and mulch with well-rotted farmyard manure. Keep plants damp, especially during dry weather.

Can't explain why the two are different, perhaps it's because the raspberries are woody?
who knows the secret of the black magic box 

[Trillium]

I totally disagree with the BBC info on strawberries.

Strawberry fruits get their nutrition from the saved energy from last year, when you fed and trimmed the plants after fruiting to renew them. To feed them now only means soft, tasteless fruit easily prone to mold because feeding makes the plants (and berries) take in excess water) to deal with the feed. Just consider strawberries the strange folk of the garden world  

Raspberries are another story and do require lots of water and some feed. But you'll find that raspberries in the wild produce just fine with no help at all and are far less prone to pests as regular feeding makes the growth soft and suspectible.

[sclarke624]

Tought I had read different things, which is why I am/was confused.  I remember Trillium saying that before and I have read the same but I have also read what mumofstig says.

Therefore I think I am gonna just have to make a decision.  I think I won't feed the strawbs when in fruit, maybe when just flowers I'll give them one tomato food splosh.  After fruiting I will chicken poo them.

Think again with Raspberries feed when I remember not too often while in fruit.

[Trillium]

It is a tricky question as most folk want to feed berry plants as they would regular veg, and it's just not so. These are soft fruits and must be treated differently. How you feed and water them the previous season determines the crop you get this year. A strange way but that's how it is with soft fruits and nature. 

[hightide]

I blame the weather, America, the Rt Hon Labour MP for Salford and Bindweed.  Botanically, the cultivated tomatoe (Lycopersicon esculentum) is a fruit of the vine, but the world has regarded it as a vegetable since an 1893 ruling by the American Supreme Court. Fruit and vegetables at that time were subject to different forms of import and export duty and the Supreme Court ruled that the tomato must be regarded as a vegetable because it was commonly eaten as one.
Looks like the BBC got confused, if they are planted in soil which is well prepared before, then fruit does not need extra feeding at fruiting time. Maybe the quote was not fully reported, as tomatoes are widely grown in bags and pots, where a balanced food would be added.

[mumofstig]

Hands up my fault! SORRY! when i had another look....bit strangely laid out but i think it may mean strawbs in containers. OOPS

[sclarke624]

Well thats fine by me cos my strawbs and rasps are in containers.  Picked and froze 6lb of strawbs today.

[canwickplot]

Well I haven't fed or hardly even watered my strawberries (bed planted), but they are huge and there's loads of 'em. I will likely do as Trillium suggested, though, and prepare them with a feed for the following year after harvest.

[mumofstig]

Well thats fine by me cos my strawbs and rasps are in containers.  Picked and froze 6lb of strawbs today.

Well that's ok then phew

[aelf]

All I've got on my strawbs this year is runners! But that may be because I replanted them in March (had to move them from their old location)