Hello,
I have a question for a future predicament I can’t find an answer to. I planted some strawberries in an old raised bed last year, I filled the bed with some peat, compost and perlite. This is the second year and the height of the soil has already considerably decreased. How do you regain volume in a raised bed with strawberries? I know if you bury the crowns it causes crown rot.
Thanks!
1 Like
I add wood chips on top of mine just before they break dormancy and they quickly push through.
Thank you! But will this work year after year? Given that my bed dropped 2-3 inches, after only two years I would be at 4-6 inches of mulch.
The settling will almost certainly slow down once the bed is well established. Just add a bit of mulch each year. As long as it’s a type of strawberries that makes runners they will make new plants every year so even if the oldest eventually get their crowns buried too deep, new plants will regularly be establishing at the correct level.
1 Like
Get yourself some topsoil from a cornfield in your state…or in a bag. Even clay can be ok if it has enough drainage. Old plants die off in a couple or 3 years and runners put roots into the top layer…should never be a problem so long as you keep grass and weeds from your beds.
Worms are pulling it down. Also biome feeding. If it bothers you you can reset the bed this fall after dormancy. Im going to let mine do its thing.
what i did in 1 bed i had with this issue is i trained as many runners to hang over the outside of the beds as possible. once the mother plants fruited i completely buried them. in 5in.of good soil and trained all the runners on top. worked great and saves you the work of digging the old ones out. you get all new plants for free. the old ones will rot feeding your new plants.
1 Like