Strawberry questions

Who has strawberries? We put some out last year, and need to know if they need fertilizer, what kind and when to fertilize. Any other things I need to know, except when they ripen, I pick and eat?

I have strawberries and I use 10-10-10 for the ones in my earthboxes and Miracle-Gro for my containers. I've had no problems with either fertilizer.

A man who works at the local nusery I bought my strawberries at recommended adding bone meal to the soil before planting. I've heard that strawberries are "heavy feeders" and do well with a lot of organic matter in the soil.

I have a question too.
My straberries have sent runners out all over the place. Do the mother plants produce the berries the second year or am I going to have to leave these runners all over the place? These runners are a good to feet from the mother plants. Should I snatch them out now or wait until spring?

Typically with June bearers, You use those those runners the first year to establish a bed about three feet wide. Set the plant on the end of stolen abiut nine inches from the mother plant.so that that you have a nice even bed with plants about nine inches apart. Then snip off the excess stolens. Everbearers don't run much so many folks used a dense planting and let the mothers plants do all the bearing.

Thank you

And they are heavy feeders. You will get larger better berries if you top dress with good compost. DonnaS

As far as top dressing with compost, would it be best to wait until it's not raining 24/7 as it is currently doing (and has been doing for the last week)? I planted them about 3 weeks ago.

By all means top dress if you don't mind getting wet. The rain water will let the micro nutrients soak in and then you can repeat the process when you get some sun.

Mind getting wet? I practically have webbed feet by now. How much compost do you put around your plants? Mine are "tristar" everbearers.

Get wet? Webbed feet? I noticed this morning that around my mouth is getting sort of orange. Reckon that is the beginning of a "duck bill"? We put bone meal around our strawberries last week. They are mulched real good. But I think that it is too early to pull that back and expose the plants. What do you all do next?

Emilyrasmus -- At least one full shovel ! It doesn't matter as long as you don't cover the crown. Do you make your own compost or is it store bought ? Just curious. Home made to me is the good stuff.
I now grow mine in earthboxes and have had good results.

I use Whitney Farms organic compost as my own compost pile is far from being ready to use.

Store bought compost. My compost has been put on hold for awhile. My husband is growing earth worms, and they require kitchen waste daily. But I like to fish too, so as long as we are making use of the scraps, I guess that's alright.

I started my strawberries in windowboxes and they are now ready to transplant. I bought some nice masonry stone to create a circular border in to which I will add soil and some of the strawberries. I found the perfect spot for one patch, where the whole thing will look fantastic. Then, upon closer inspection I found something that might be a stumbling block. Apparently, in that spot there are already strawberries growing wild, or at least they appear to be strawberries. However, they are not the nice wild strawberries, but those tiny, inedible, shrivelled up looking ones that I would call ornamental, but they are more weed than anything else. I have 4 different strains of strawberries that I will be planting in 4 separate areas, far enough apart to hopefully prevent cross pollination between the different strains and hopefully keep them pure, but now my concern is what can happen with these wild ornamental weed type strawberries being right there. Can they cross with the "normal" strawberries? If so how do I kill the weed strawberries and not affect the good ones I plan to plant? Any help would be appreciated.

Elaphe

Unless you are saving seeds to create a new strawbeery cultivar, you don't have to worry about cross pollination, Strawberries are normally propogated by vegetative means ie. runners (stolens) No pollination is involved. Strawberries do not like competition so all weeds including your wild strawberry like plants should be removed from your patch.

I have successfully used Round Up to insure full kill before planting. If you will look at the directions on the bottle in the store, you can spray anywhere but somewhere that you are going to sow seeds. I had a bad infestation from a weed last year in one of my flower beds, and have sprayed with Round Up to insure that |(maybe) this bed will be weed free this year.

Two years ago I put out 50 strawberry plants in 5 rows. At planting I added 10-10-10 and mulched with straw between the rows. The first year I removed the blossoms and directed the runners to the straw covered rows. Last year we had more strawberries than we knew what to do with. After harvest I mowed the entire plot and tilled out the 5 original rows. I then fertilized the new rows with 10-10-10 and covered with straw mulch. This cycle will be completed every year. To see a picture you can go here. http://kerryz-garden.blogspot.com/2004/06/strawberries-yr-2.html

I would love to see pictures of your strawberry patches. Does anyone have any they can post? What about covering the patch so birds don't eat most of the harvest? Very interested but never had the space or sun to do so before this year.

Thanks

Here is a photo I just took, at 6:30pm and late in day, of my newly built and newly planted raised bed for strawberries. The bottom layer is unshredded brush, then a layer of my shredded stuff. Then layers of compost, manure and potting soil. I transplanted 4 varieties from other areas in my garden to this bed. there are 30 plants and 4 varieties, I think all are everbearers. The lables are long gone. I plan to cover the entire bed with bird netting when they have berries. This year I will remove most if not all of the blooms. I also added Planters 2, organic 9-3-4 fertilizer, and that is all I will do this year. DonnaS