A fresh start with strawberries

Where we used to live we had a strawberry bed which produced bountiful quantities of fruit every year. This was despite being rather neglected and, apart from an annual weed and tidy-up, was more-or-less left to its own devices. It was very generous to us although we gave little back in return.

Strawberries are one of the easiest crops to grow and also integral to summer culinary expectations. However, here we have not had much success with them and they have been sorely missed. I had originally ordered plants from a reputable fruit plant supplier but they were bizarrely, and unexpectedly, delivered in the first week of January. As it turned out, a cold and wet January. I made the mistake of planting them out soon after they arrived and many of them had rotted off by the spring. What would have been better (aside from being delivered at a more sensible time) is to have potted them up and kept them in a greenhouse or cold frame until planting them out in the spring. Subsequent replacement plants never fully established themselves. It might be because of our hungry and thirsty, sandy soil. It also didn’t help that the neighbouring autumn fruiting raspberry bushes were throwing up shoots in the midst of the strawberry rows in an attempted colonisation. Instead of the gluts we have been used to in the past the harvests have been meagre to say the least. 

It was time that this state of affairs was sorted out. I decided to create a dedicated strawberry bed, separate from the main vegetable plots. I chose a prime location alongside the length of the greenhouse. I used 5 x 8’ sleepers to create a raised bed: four along the lengths, front and back, and one cut in half for the two sides. I think raised beds, often promoted as the default way of creating a vegetable bed, are over-used but this is an exception to the rule.

I broke up the ground then filled the bed with soil. A few years ago, when I created a new vegetable plot, I skimmed off the top layer of turf. This I had neatly stacked with each turf upside down. It’s been minding its own business for the last 3 or 4 years. This was the source of my soil supply for the strawberry bed. The the grass had died off leaving a crumbly, weed free, loam. I mixed in my own compost to further enrich the soil. A sprinkling of wood ash was also added. Once filled and raked level, it was given a good soaking. I left it for a few days for the soil to settle before planting up.

I chose two strawberry varieties: Honeoye (early fruiting) and the well known Cambridge Favourite (mid-season). Both are reliable, heavy croppers with good flavour and have been awarded the RHS Award of Garden Merit. There was space for a row of 13 of each variety. I now just need to be patient.