4 steps to a rich strawberry crop
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Growing strawberries outdoors is extremely exciting. Your efforts will pay off when you harvest and enjoy your strawberries to the fullest. Learn how to plant a strawberry garden and grow delicious, organic fruit in your garden.
Growing strawberries: create a garden
Choose a location to grow your strawberries outdoors. Strawberry plants grow best in warm areas of the garden with lots of light. You should take this into account when deciding where to locate your garden. The warm environment also gives the fruit fuller flavor and richer aroma.
Preparing the soil for plants
Strawberries require rich, freely draining soil. It has shallow roots, so it is important to prepare the soil before planting if the conditions are unfavorable. Dig out the soil twice and mix with well-rotted compost to improve the quality of the poor soil. In cases where drainage is poor in clay soil, plants should be placed in raised beds.
Sowing the garden
When growing strawberries outdoors, place each plant approximately 50 cm apart, and each individual row should be at least 60 cm apart.
You can shape your strawberry garden into any shape that perfectly matches the shape of your garden space. However, it should be borne in mind that square beds facilitate the process of planting strawberry plants and better protect the berries from pests.
Growing strawberries and proper berry care
Plants should be watered often enough, as the berries appear and grow during periods of drought throughout the growing season.
When growing outdoors, watering strawberries should be done carefully, only at the base. Since the ingress of water on the plant itself can accelerate the process of fruit rotting.
You can further protect emerging berries from rot by placing a layer of straw between them and the ground. This layer of straw should also help prevent weeds, and those that do have to be removed manually. To protect fruits from birds, cover the plants with a net or place a special fruit cage on top of them.
The first harvest of grown strawberries can be obtained in about 60 days after planting. A well-groomed strawberry bed should continue to bear fruit for up to three years. After this period, the plants will need to be replaced. To ensure the longevity of your berry garden, do not plant potatoes, chrysanthemums or tomatoes near your strawberries, as they are all prone to leaf disease and subsequent wilting.
