[Dawn in the North]

Hi,

I have a relatively new allotment, which is in bad shape.  I am digging it over, but its slow work.  I have a large patch of strawberrys, which are now flowering, it seems a shame to dig them up - so I am leaving them as is.

(a) Will the large number of weeds interfere with the growing of the strawberrys and producing lovely fruit?

(b)  If Yes, is there anything I can do about the weeds to at least discourage them? - bearing in mind it is an area of about 2 meters square.

Thank You

Regards

Dawn

[comic_muse]

My advice, for what it's worth....depends on what sort of weeds, ie. how pernicious & difficult to get rid of they are & how old & matted the weedy bed is as it may be getting tired.  Strawberry's are really only on top form for about 4-5 years.....so, if the original plants are older than that, or are very overcrowded, I'd pot up some runners from them this season, get some Mypex or other heavy duty woven black weed suppresion matting, lay it out on a fresh bit of ground, & plant through it.  Next season you can either run both beds or sacrifice the old one, you'll get some crop off the new piece first year.
You'll be planting (hopefully) into well prepared soil with plenty of compost & you'll be off to a good start.  At 2m x 2m, even if the plants are young, if they're full of weeds I'd give them a fresh go.

[noshed]

I agree. I had exactly the same problem. I dug the whole bed up in early spring and picked out the best-looking plants. I planted them on another bed through a cheap Tesco plastic mulch. They've all got loads of fruit on now.
I'd let the ones you've got fruit now and pot up some runners as CM advises. In the mean time prepare a new bed for planting later in the year.
I think strawberries are quite easy to grow but you do need to change the plants every 3/4 years. It's easy to grow the runners on.

[stompy]

Can you get fruit of the runners in the first year you plant them or do you have to wait a year, plant them 2 years before you need them :?:

[noshed]

I'm not sure about the runners but the plants I transplanted have all fruited in the same year - and some of them were probably runners, the patch was such a jungle.
See if they've got any books in the library on fruit and veg. I'm working my way through the whole borough's collection at the moment.

[Heather_S]

Strawberries only lightly crop in their first year usually. Then the 2nd and 3rd years they crop heavily then they taper off after that. I've been taking runners off of my strawberry plants in their first year when they're not cropping heavily anyway. Only take enough runners for your needs or try to limit it to 2-3 a plant. Remove all other runners before they start rooting to keep the energy in the strawberry plant for making more berries next year.
I think I have quite nice strawberry plants following the above advice and method and it means out of 2 strawberry plants I bought 3 years ago, I now have at least 8 plants I think. Can't keep track of them. Quite a few in any case, in pots and at the allotment.
I'd put down a heavy layer of straw around the strawberries and just hope the weeds don't come up through them this year. Cross your fingers for some fruit then deal with it all in the autumn.

[comic_muse]

If you take the runner into a decent sized pot of 50/50 JI#3 & a propriortry compost & foliar feed the growing rooted runner...Phostrogen / Seaweed, whatever & restrict the runners to as many as you are growing plants from as suggested, a really well grown 1st year plant, started early & well nurtured will give you a decent return from the first year.  Try to leave the 'link' between the parent & young plant for as long as possible.  It helps to use old 'crock' pots, because you can set them into the bed & they'll draw some moisture through into the compost, the plastic pots inevitably get dry because the plant needs to be growing away in high summer when there ( shouldn't !?) be much rain