In addition to selecting a place for your strawberry patch, preparing the soil so that it is well-drained, and deciding on the type of row technique and cultivar to employ.

If you want to grow organic strawberries successfully, you need to plant them at the correct depth.Trim any runners and blooms from your plants before setting them up. It’s also a good idea to cut roots that are longer than five inches.

Half of the plant’s crown is recommended to be in the soil and half out of it. If you fully bury the crown, you’re encouraging root rots to set up shop. Water cannot get to stems, leaves, and berries from roots if planted with the crown entirely out of the earth.

As you fill-up the dirt around the roots, you must hold the crowns at the correct height. Untangled roots that do not reach much beyond vertical are ideal. Well-established plants send secondary, horizontal roots into the earth.

To minimize sun shock, plant strawberries in the late afternoon to avoid heat stress. As soon as you’ve planted your plants, make sure to water them quickly. Avoid watering wilting leaves down to the earth. This is where fungus hides.

As soon as the June fruit begins to ripen, pull off all of the blooms. Strawberries that produce fruit year-round should be allowed to flower when the plants have grown to a mature size. In the fall, they will yield a harvest.

 

Use a balanced fertilizer to feed your new plants two weeks after planting and again a month later (at six weeks). Strawberries need to be watered well every week to be healthy. If Mother Nature has brought you rain, add an inch of water every seven days. As soon as the plant’s bloom, please give them a good watering, and continue to do so throughout the summer and fall.

Keep your strawberry patch clear of weeds since water is essential and stress is an issue. This will also make it easier to pin runners when the time comes.

Strawberries in the upper western areas are relatively disease-free when planted properly. However, strawberries grown in humid, warm climates are plagued by a variety of pests and illnesses.

The best way to find out which cultivars are disease-resistant in your region is to ask local horticulturists or producers for advice. This can be avoided by selecting strains that are disease resistant.

Whenever plants are covered in berries, birds become an issue. However, birds appear to find a way over row covers. If the netting is fixed to the ground using stones or dirt, it can be pretty effective. We accept that birds will eat part of our fruit and are content if we receive the majority of it.

 

Cover your plants in the autumn with two to three inches of mulch and ensure that the wind does not blow away (this is one time that snow, with its insulating properties, is a bonus). Strawberries aren’t fond of being frozen and thawed again. When the temperatures drop in January, you want the soil temperature to remain stable.