Our strawberries are starting to ripen now, each morning I greedily search through the foliage for ruby red fruit. We grow Cambridge Favourite strawberries and started our patch with just a few plants, collecting runners over the years to plant in old wine crates, troughs and hanging baskets extends our picking enjoyment even further.
The original strawberry patch is 3 years old and full to the brim, my plan is to pot up runners before they root down into the lawn and start a new bed in autumn or early spring to eventually succeed the current one. To avoid a build up of disease and pests it’s best to plant on new ground every 3 -5 years, yields will reduce dramatically after 2 years but the plants will keep fruiting with a bit of care.
Snacking on a warm strawberry straight from the garden is one of the most pleasurable moments of a British summer, another is a glass of Pimms swimming with sweet boozy fruit (for me anyway). Oh yeah!
Juicy sharing.
Are strawberries a two year plant, before first berry?
Is it necessary to trim off, off shoots for berries sooner?
Does red stems mean a bacterial problem?
Strawberry plants will fruit in their first year, it’s not necessary to cut shoots off for berries but some folk remove first year flowers to encourage a better crop the following year – we don’t follow this practise. Red stems as far as I know is not bacterial but strawberries are prone to grey mould.
Thank you Soo much…