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'Let me take you down...'
Carrying on from where I left off in my last article I will write about the open air strawberry crop which should be going in about now. The earlier the ‘runners’ (strawberry plants) are put in, the better for first year cropping. Potted strawberry runners are available, but not organically grown – that I know of, and they are generally expensive to purchase on any kind of scale.
Probably the most important thing to remember when planting a strawberry bed or field is that the crop will be in for at least three years and maybe four so the ground needs thorough preparation with adequate feeding. All perennial weeds need to be removed and the most common planting method is through some form of poly mulch.
Woven black polythene such as Mypex is best as it allows moisture through. The fabric comes with boxed areas printed on to aid spacing. The main reasons for planting through a mulch are to control weeds Laying mypex as strawberry mulch keep the fruit off the soil and restrict runners from rooting. Herein lies a major headache because after cropping each year, strawberries send out runners which will root everywhere, if allowed. Coupled with weeds in an unmulched situation you end up with a jungle. If using a mulch, the simplest way to root up runners is to place a little pot of compost under the runner which can be pegged in place in the pot using a little bent wire or a forked twig. When the runner has rooted you can snip ‘the umbilical cord’ that connects it to the mother plant.
Soil Preparation
Even though strawberries prefer a fairly acid soil, most soils will produce a reasonable crop with a little effort. However, avoid waterlogged areas or fields.
A heavy dressing of well rotted farmyard manure or compost, or a mix of both, will be needed. A good barrow full to about three square metres or, I read somewhere, one hundred tonnes to the hectare on light soils – that a lot of manure! A nice scattering of rock potash or dried seaweed and your plants should establish well.
Spread this on ‘clean’ soil and rotovate or dig in depending on the size of your plot. Some form of bed system will be needed as access for picking is very important. Raised beds make picking easier but are labour intensive to prepare on a large scale. We planted our bed four plants wide with runners spaced roughly 15x15 inches. The bed is then accessible from both sides without too much trampling. Leave at least 30 inches between beds and if you use a two wheeled tractor type of rotovator leave enough space to till the pathways.
Once the ground is prepared lay out your polymulch in a straight line using a string and weigh or pin it down. Do this properly as you don’t want it blowing away in a gale. Use bricks, stones, pegs or bury the edges. If it blows off it is surprisingly difficult to replace exactly over plants.
Next, you need to make the holes to plant through. On a calm and dry day (if there is one), use a blow torch to make good sized holes at the desired spacing (about nine inches across is good). Check back on previous holes regularly to make sure the plastic hasn’t caught fire. If it happens blow it out.
Plant with a trowel making sure the roots are well in but do not bury the central crown or it will rot. If the roots are put in too shallow, the runners will lift in frosty weather and never do as well afterwards. A lot of gardening books recommend planting the roots wide and shallow. You can’t really do this through a small hole and I’m not so sure it’s such good advice anyway – big vigorous roots need a decent hole. Once the runners are in you can admire and heave a sigh of relief.
Early the following year, cover with fleece until the first flowers appear and then remove to allow in pollinating insects. On a smaller scale, straw makes a useful and pretty mulch which will need renewing every so often as it rots in, enriching the soil and increasing earthworm activity to the benefit of the plants.
Harvesting
Once the strawberries start to ripen in early June you will need to protect the berries from birds and slugs. Some form of netting to keep birds at bay is essential. Get the netting on before blackbirds get a taste for them – I remember growing a strawberry bed many years ago with Jason Horner and the blackbirds, having had that taste before netting, vented their frustrations on newly planted rows of red lettuce, pulling them up. We just drape the netting on top of the crop weighing it down at the sides. Birds will peck the odd fruit as they try to get in but shouldn’t do much harm.
How ripe should the berries be before harvesting? If selling at a market stall you can pick them quite ripe. After picking the fruit continues to ripen so if it takes a day or two to move the crop bear this in mind. You will lose less fruit to disease or pests by picking slightly under ripe – this is very important during wet spells. We were blessed this year with over two good sunny weeks during cropping and had an excellent crop. Bad weather is the main enemy of the organic crop. Refrigeration or storage in a cold room will greatly extend the crop’s shelf life but at the expense of taste and texture.
Varieties
These are myriad, especially if you want a prolonged harvesting period. For general main crop use Elsanta is the favourite. Grown organically it tastes good despite its critics, yields well and shows good disease resistance when well grown. The older Cambridge Vigour and Favourite are still an option but not as good or reliable in my humble opinion. I have grown Cambridge Favourite and found the flavour a bit mealy and it had a very short shelf life. There are lots of other cultivars available of which I have no experience.
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