Strawberries are perhaps one of the most popular fruits that gardeners grow in their gardens. Especially novice gardeners. But, there are many different types to consider, and there are growing conditions you'll want to meet in order to have an optimal harvest. In this article, organic gardening expert Old Garden examines how to successfully plant, grow, and care for Strawberries in your garden.
There are few things better than a fresh strawberry straight from your garden. Sweet, flavorful, and refreshing, these scarlet red fruits are a decadent addition to smoothies, salads, desserts, or healthy snacks. Garden-fresh strawberries have an aroma and rich flavor unparalleled by any supermarket counterpart.
Strawberries are an incredible asset for any gardener seeking to lower their food bill, add nutrition to their meals, and plant perennials that keep yielding year after year. Best of all, they are the perfect snack straight from the garden.
If you’ve been wanting to grow small fruits but feel intimidated by bush berries or fruit trees, strawberries are the perfect place to start. They are resilient, adapted to many climates, and easy to care for.
Growing strawberries from seed? Yes, it's possible! A strawberry patch is usually started from young plants or dormant root clumps, but you can grow delightful berries from seed too
1. Start Seeds Indoors
Alpine strawberries will produce fruit the first summer after planting if the seeds are started indoors about 8 weeks before the last frost. Sow the tiny seeds in a seed-starting flat or shallow container filled with fine seed starting mix. Sprinkle the seeds on top of the starting mix. Barely cover the seeds with soil; they need light to germinate. Mist the soil daily to keep it moist but not wet. Be careful not to water too intensely; too much water will disturb the seeds, pushing them down into the soil where they will not be able to germinate. 
Provide a strong light source above the seeded flat. A grow light or a shop light positioned about 6 inches above the flat will help seeds germinate. Maintain a moderate air temperature around the flat. Strawberry seeds germinate best at 65 to 70℉. Alpine strawberries can also be seeded directly in the garden after the last frost.
2. Let Seeds Germinate
Strawberry seeds are slow to germinate. Expect to wait at least 14 days to as long as 45 days for tiny leaves to pop out of the soil. Continue to mist the soil, not allowing it to dry out, and providing plenty of light as you wait. The long germination time adds to the importance of planting seeds at least 8 weeks before the last frost in spring to ensure berries are produced the first year.
3. Prepare Seedlings to Be Planted
Help berry seedlings transition from consistently warm indoor growing conditions to more unpredictable outdoor weather by making the move slowly. When seedlings have multiple sets of leaves and are at least 3 inches tall, acclimate them to outdoor growing conditions by setting seedlings outside for several hours each day and bringing them inside at night. After seedlings are acclimated to the outdoors for a week or so, they are ready to be planted in the garden.
4. Plant in Landscape Beds or Containers
Alpine strawberries are great low-growing edging plants. Plant them at the front of a perennial border or landscape bed to create a neat and tidy edge. The plants’ green foliage looks good from spring until frost and berries are a cinch to harvest at the front of the bed. Alpine strawberries grow well in containers of all types. They will flower and fruit when they receive at least 6 hours of bright sunlight a day. The more sunlight they receive, the more fruit they will produce.
Alpine strawberries grow in clumps 6 to 8 inches across and about 6 inches tall. Unlike traditional strawberries, they do not produce runners and spread to form colonies. Plant transplants 8 inches or so apart to create a dense, groundcover-style planting.
5. Remember to Water
Regular moisture is key to good berry production. Your strawberry plants need about 1 inch of water a week. Supplement rainfall with hand-watering as needed to reach this amount. Before watering, check the soil moisture. If the top inch is moist, don’t water and check the soil again in a few days. Clay soil will retain water longer than fast-draining sandy soil.
How to Grow Strawberries
Strawberries are a beginner-friendly crop for most gardens in the U.S. They can even be grown in hanging baskets or patio containers! There are many different ways to grow strawberries, depending on how hands-on you want to be.
On one end of the spectrum, they can be managed as a low-maintenance perennial ground cover. This passive technique won’t bear as many fruits as intensively managed plants, but will still yield some nice berries year after year. On the other end of the spectrum, regular tending and pruning will yield the most berries in a small space but may require extra time and attention. Either way, all strawberries have similar requirements for light, water, soil, climate, and fertility
Light
Strawberries grow best in full sunshine. At least 6-8 hours of warm direct sun each day will produce the yummiest fruits and most vigorous plants. Strawberries are low-growing plants that have a hard time competing with a dense upper canopy. Ideally, you should plant them in an area of your garden that doesn’t get shaded by trees or structures during the day. Watch how the sun moves over your space throughout the season to get an idea of the solar aspect of your yard.
If you only have slightly shaded areas available, don’t worry! Wild Fragaria species can be found growing on forest margins and in open meadows, demonstrating their adaptability to different light conditions. Domesticated garden strawberries can also be grown in a slightly shady part of the garden, however, they thrive best in full sunlight like your tomatoes and peppers.
Mulching
Mulching significantly reduces watering needs and keeps the strawberries warm in the winter and cool in the summer. My favorite organic mulch for strawberries is straw! They are called strawberries after all!
Straw holds moisture in the soil and keeps fruits off the ground, which ultimately makes for a cleaner, easier harvest. However, be careful when buying straw: it should be seedless (do not use hay) and not treated with herbicides that can harm your garden or your health. You can also use landscape fabric with holes burned in it or dry deciduous leaves as a mulch.
Soil
When it comes to soil, strawberries love a rich well-drained soil that is slightly acidic with a pH between 5.5 and 7.0. If you have heavy clay soil, be sure to amend with lots of compost (4” deep) or decomposed leaves. You can also make mounds or hugelkultur-style “lasagna” beds of layered leaves, straw, manure, compost, and topsoil. Strawberries tend to be stunted and stressed in hard clay, so these steps are very important.
If you have sandy soil, simply amend with 1-2” of compost. Otherwise, you can grow your berry plants in a high-quality organic potting mix in containers. Small amounts of sawdust or pine needles can also be added to help acidify the soil if necessary.
Climate and Temperature
Strawberries can be grown as perennials in temperate USDA growing zones 4-8. They can also be grown as annuals during the cooler seasons of zones 9-10. In a perfect world, strawberries want to flower and fruit in temperatures between 60° and 80°F. If it gets too hot, they will not produce very abundant harvests and weak plants may even die. This is why spring planting in hot areas is typically not worth the effort (fall is a much better option).
In spite of their reputation as a summer fruit, strawberries are surprisingly cold-hardy perennials. They can tolerate temperatures as low as 10-20°F if they are protected by a deep layer of straw mulch or a row cover fabric. But keep in mind, they can only handle these sub-freezing temperatures during the dormant stage when the foliage has died back to the ground. The plants prepare themselves for this “hibernation” by slowing cellular processes and moving into a dormant state in late fall.
However, if your strawberries aren’t prepared for dormancy when cold hits, they can definitely suffer from frost injury. If you get a late frost in the spring while strawberries are flowering, it is very important to cover and protect the plants if temperatures dip down below 30°F.
Tender flowers and green fruit can easily be damaged or killed by the cold, which will greatly reduce your harvests. Anything you can do to buffer the plants against random cold snaps during the growing season will help prevent losses. Most growers use a thick straw mulch around the plants and low tunnels with row cover for the early spring and late fall.
Fertilizing
The key to large, luscious strawberries is most certainly properly timed fertility. Strawberry plants put a lot of energy into growing and ripening those vibrant juicy fruits, therefore they are especially “hungry” in the flowering and fruiting stage.
I’ve found that a generous helping of all-purpose organic fertilizer or diluted kelp and fish liquid fertilizer at the time of planting helps plants get well-established and rooted. Once flowering begins, a weekly feeding of fish fertilizer helps promote more flowers and fruit. Older berries that have already been established usually only need to be fertilized once a year around the time of fruiting or right after.
But, there is a caveat. You don’t want to feed strawberries (especially June-bearing varieties) too much nitrogen-rich fertilizer in the spring because it may promote excess foliage growth instead of putting energy into the fruit. Too much nitrogen also can cause softer berries that are prone to rot. The best course of action is simply using slow-release organic fertility like an all-purpose blend, high-quality compost, or rotted manure.
Strawberry Varieties
There are three primary types of strawberries: June-bearing, ever-bearing, and day neutral. Each of these categories includes dozens of different cultivars with unique flavors, yield potential, and adaptations to specific climates.
They differ in their life cycles and fruiting times, so your selection will ultimately depend on your preferences. I like to grow a diversity of cultivars to spread out my harvest and taste multiple flavors throughout the season.
Propagation
Strawberries are typically vegetatively propagated (by division or crown) rather than sexually propagated (by seed). This is because strawberry seeds take a long time to mature and are less reliable than crowns. Strawberry crowns are young rooted plants that have been harvested, cleaned, stored, and shipped for replanting. They give gardeners a head start in the spring and quickly begin growing into happy large plants.