The 200 plus strawberry plants in the foreground are in a very temporary home. They are banked, trenched, or heeled in; a process of laying plants in a trench and covering the roots with soil. Here they can reside until they can be relocated. A few of these transplants were retrieved from a four old bed that I dug out last week, but most were dug out from runners in the paths on either side of the center bed in the background.
100 of these plants have already been relocated into the bed on the right in the background. My third bed, the weedy one on the left in the background, between the two white buckets, will also yield some more plants as I clean out the path up against the lawn.
Strawberries have been an exceptionally easy perennial for me to grow. I do a three-year rotation, with three beds, moving the beds through the garden. I’m always amazed at the resiliency and toughness of strawberries. I uproot them when I’m weeding. I transplant the same plant several times in the spring. I neglect them and allow them to get overrun with weeds, but they hang in there and with just a little care they thrive and yield lots of excellent tasty fruit.
I previously talked more about my strawberry rotation and their proclivity to reproduce, here.
I have almost no insect damage, but birds can be a problem. Birds go after the fully ripe berries so if I harvest when the berries are just over half red, they ripen just fine in the house. Agricultural fabric works well as a bird deterrent, too, but that’s just another thing I have to mess with, so it doesn’t always get used.
The biggest issue I have with strawberries is the weeding involved. I’ve tried mulching, but I’ve not been real happy with the results. Chickweed, dandelion, quack grass, and creeping Charlie are the main weed intruders. In the spring, or after a good soaking rain, I can dig the grass and dandelion out with a garden fork and a CobraHead weeder and the berries hardly seem to mind the disturbance. The other weeds can be controlled with persistence. Some years I persist and some I don’t.
Most of these extra berry plants will be given to an upcoming plant sale for our Cambridge Friends of The Library fundraiser coming up in a couple weeks. Some of the plants are already blossoming and it will not be long before we are enjoying the fruit.