[gavinjconway]

Hi everyone.. I have been given a roll of weed suppressant fabric and would like to use it with my strawberries.. I have never used it so need some info how best to use it.

Do I cut holes in it and lay it on the bed then plant through? Do I cut round holes or cut a X instead? or how do I use it best..

[arugula]

I would cut an X, but strawberries are pretty rampant so could you put the fabric to better use, or do you hope to keep the slugs off?

[gavinjconway]

That was a quick reply  ... I thought it a good plan to keep the weeds down and then also dont require to mulch with barley hay to keep fruit clean etc... slugs?? maybe just use pellets?

[Janeymiddlewife]

I've done as Argylie suggests for 2 years, however after that the cheap type suppressant fabric had had it, I still used straw & slug pellets as soil tends to "leak" back through the crosses, you could try weighing the flaps down with small stones or pebbles, this year I'm trying without.

[gavinjconway]

Ok sounds good to me.. what spacings do you guys use.. I was looking at 40cm each way?

[gobs]

I'm doing about a foot max. Look out for your runners will need to be potting up as they cant root.

I'd rather put them under squashes, personally. But then, you can put it anywhere, if you want to.

[plot53b]

My allotment neighbour has his strawberry bed covered in the fabric with crosses cut where the plants are. He also has ridged up the soil in rows and plants the strawberry plants on top. The fabric helps keep weeds away and also keeps the soil ridges in place. He still uses straw, but as the plants are higher, it helps keep the fruit of the ground.

It looked great, his plants were huge and he seems to do very well - I am stealing borrowing the idea this year when I plant my new strawberry bed 

[leeks r us]

Its a much better method gav but as gobs mentioned when the plant puts its runners out you need to put small pots of compost/soil out and layer them same as you take a layerd cutting off a plant- lay it over the compost and peg it in or cover it with compost so it makes good contact with the soil.

[gavinjconway]

Thanks for the advices... I do realise that I would need to use pots for the runners... no probs as I actually did that a lot this year when harvesting them as they were already in pots on my rooftop garden.

Now to get cutting holes / X's

[DigIt]

Hi Gavin

I used weed suppressant.
Layed it down and then cut and planted through.

Here's how mine looked a couple of months after planting.

The 2 beds are 3 metres long and each a metre wide
The alkathene piping supports netting to keep of the pigeons et al.

Daryl

[gavinjconway]

Thanks Daryl  - I actually got given a few lengths of the blue piping today!!! Good of you to post the pic..

[DigIt]

Thanks Daryl  - I actually got given a few lengths of the blue piping today!!! Good of you to post the pic..

No problem. Hope it helps