Strawberries and plums flourish in Warsaw s urban gardens
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Strawberries are the perfect summer fruit to accompany sweet desserts or be eaten as a healthy snack – and they are surprisingly easy to grow at home. These seeded red fruits will do well in full sun either in your garden, or on a warm windowsill – but when is the best time to plant them? Express.co.uk reveals the perfect time to plant strawberries for a steady summer harvest.
When to plant strawberries
Strawberry plants are the perfect crop for gardeners looking to get stuck into some homegrown produce this summer.
This versatile fruit requires just a few key components to produce an abundant crop, with the juicy red berries growing in no time at all.
With the warm spring weather finally arriving across most parts of the UK, the time has almost come to begin planting strawberry seeds.
According to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), mid-spring is the perfect time to get planting in order to secure fresh strawberries throughout summer.
The seasonal weather provides optimum growing conditions to help your plants to thrive, and will provide you with plenty of juicy red fruits as early as June.
Typically strawberries are planted in rows of garden soil, but you can also add your young plants to raised beds, borders, containers or even growing bags.
If you’re looking for a later harvest, this flavoursome plant can also be planted later in the year – around late summer or early autumn.
Which strawberries should you plant?
When it comes to taste, homegrown strawberries are unbeaten by their store-bought counterparts, which are usually picked before they’re really ready.
There are a number of categories of strawberry plants which can be added to your garden right now, all of which offer different harvest times.
The most popular varieties include:
- Summer-fruiting or June-bearing varieties – produce their fruits in one go over a few short weeks in early summer.
- Everbearing or perpetual varieties – give two smaller harvests in early summer then a second towards the end of summer
- Day-neutral strawberries – crop on and off throughout the growing season
Summer-fruiting varieties are the best option for an earlier harvest, but planting a wide range will provide you with a more steady flow of fresh fruits throughout summer.
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How to plant strawberries in spring
Strawberries are best planted from young plants or runners from the end of March through to early summer, but what’s the best way to do it?
Prepare your soil
Strawberries will benefit from well-rotted manure or compost in the soil, and should be fertilised for best results.
Dig in two buckets of organic matter into soil beds, and use a few handfuls at a time for containers.
Dig a large hole
Once your soil is prepared, it’s time to trim the roots to around 10cm if necessary and spread them out in a well-dug hole.
You should make the hole big enough to accommodate the crown so it rests lightly on the surface before being firmed in.
The RHS said: “Planting at the correct depth is important – if the crown is planted too deeply it will rot, if it’s planted too shallowly the plants will dry out and die.”
Water the site well and repeat the process using the following measurements:
- Space plants 30-40cm apart
- Space rows 75-100cm apart
When planting strawberries in early spring, you should always remove the first flush of flowers on perpetual strawberries, though this should only be done to summer-fruiting strawberries if the plants appear weak.
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