Planting everbearing strawberries

Growing fruit adds another dimension to gardening. After having success growing vegetables and flowers, many gardeners start to think about growing fruit. Growing fruit takes patience since it takes a few years to get a crop.

Fruit trees typically take four to five years minimum to bear fruit. Grapevines need to be at least three years old before they produce grapes. You can get your first raspberries after two years.

You only have to wait until the next year to pick strawberries from standard June bearing strawberries. But if you really want to get fruit as soon as possible, everbearing strawberries will yield fruit in about the same amount of time it takes to grow a tomato.

Everbearing strawberries are perfect for small areas since the plants are easier to maintain than June bearing strawberries. The everbearing types give rise to very few baby runner plants compared to June bearing plants. In fact, one major thing that any strawberry grower has to do is to remove many of the runner plants from June bearers in order to avoid over crowding. That’s not the case with ever bearers.

There are a couple of disadvantages though. The berries they produce are typically not as large as June bearers, especially the first berries of the June bearing season, plus the total yield will be smaller.

Everbearing strawberries are commonly grown in containers such as hanging baskets or patio planters.

The classic strawberry pyramid terrace is perfect for those looking for an authentic mid-century garden feature. When my siblings and I were growing up, my parents constructed one. It was round with three or four tiers. The walls were made of shiny corrugated aluminum and was impressive to me as a child. As a matter of fact you can still buy those aluminum terraces.

Strawberry plants are available at garden centers and mail order catalogs. Be sure you double-check the label on the plants before purchasing them since everbearing plants and June bearing plants look identical.

Like most plants, strawberries do better if the soil is fertile or supplemented with fertilizer, compost or manure. But they are not particularly heavy feeders as potatoes are for example.

All of the growth of a strawberry plant, including its roots, leaves, runners and flower stems, arises from its “crown”. The crown is that firm, swollen area that is located between the roots and the leaves.

It is critical that the center of the crown is planted level with the surface of the soil. Placed too high and plant will dry out, placed too low and it will not produce many berries.

If you are planting a small amount of plants, use a garden trowel to dig a hole big enough to accommodate the plant roots. Form a mound of soil in the center of the hole and spread the roots evenly over the mound. Then cover the roots with soil taking care the crown is at the right height.

Plants are normally placed around 8 to 12 inches apart with 24 inches between rows. That is quite a bit closer than June bearing plants.

All strawberry plants do best with an even amount of water, about one inch of water of water per week either from rain or irrigation, or both.

Weed your young plants by hand the first few weeks. Then add mulch to help control weeds, conserve soil moisture and keep berries off the ground.

To harvest everbearing strawberries the first year without weakening the plants, it’s best to remove all flowers the first six weeks, until about the middle of June. Also remove all runners that form for the rest of the entire first season.

After mid-June, the new flowers that form will set fruit that will be ready to harvest in August and possibly into October.

You’ll notice that your everbearing strawberries will produce mainly two or three times during the growing season, which is normal for some varieties.

Everbearing strawberries are further subdivided into a group known as day neutral strawberries. While regular ever bearers depend on long days to set fruit, day neutral strawberries will set fruit independent of daylight hours. Day neutral plant will produce a more steady crop of berries.

To get the best of both worlds, at one time I grew a main crop of June bearing strawberries that would last for a few weeks. There would be plenty of fruit for strawberry shortcake, fresh eating and making jam. I also grew a small patch of everbearing strawberries for our kids so they could go out to the garden and pick strawberries by themselves as a treat throughout the summer.

Purchase and plant your strawberry plants now so they can get a good start before the heat of the summer arrives.