Strawberry Plants

The strawberry plant is one of the easiest plants to grow. What's more, the strawberry fruit is delicious and home grown strawberries will taste much sweeter than supermarket strawberries. Strawberries purchased from the supermarket have generally traveled long distances, most of the strawberries found in UK supermarkets have come from places like the Canary Islands. Strawberries do not travel very well and their flavour gets sapped. What better excuse for growing them yourself.

There are three main types of strawberry. The strawberries found in the shops are generally the summer variety. These Summer bearing strawberries have a very short crop period of around 3 to 4 weeks during the summer period. The perpetual bearing variety will bear usually three separate lots of fruit which will mean crops throughout the Summer. And finally the alpine strawberry is particually hardy and produces smaller fruit and can be cropped mid to late summer.

Here are our top tips for growing strawberries

• Possition your stawberry plants in a sunny possition to get the best flavour from your strawberries.
• Strawberrys grow best if give room to grow. We recomend to leaves at least 8 inces bettween each row of plants.
• They will rot easily if waterlogged, it is recomended you ensure your soil drains well.
• Raised beds are a great place to grow strawberry's as you have more control over the environment.
• Try and grow your strawberries in locations that benefit from long sunny days and cool nights
• Frost will do some serious damage. The best crops generally are found on plants started in early September. If frost is a problem wait until mid April for Summer bearing strawberries. Perpetual bearing strawberries should be planted in mid April.
• Windy locations will make it dificult for insects to polinate the small flowers, so try and find a sheltered spot.
• The fruit is very atractive to birds, avioid birds eating your crop don't forget to put wire netting over the plants before the fruit starts growing.
• You might have noticed strawberrys are often photographed around staw. When the fruit starts growing larger the fruits will start weighing the plant down and come to rest on the soil where they will begin to rot. Straw or plastic bin liners around the plant can help to reduce this risk. If you choose to use bin liners make sure you make holes to allow for drainage or your fruit will rot in the water collected on the surface.