In a world somewhere between the imaginary one where everything produces up to full potential, and the one where all is lost to slugs, birds, fungi, molds, viruses, roaming dogs with big feet, hail, sun scald and whatever else - how many strawberry plants per person would you say is a good number and why? You can consider either just for fresh eating or for freezing and jam making. I’d really like to hear opinions on this.
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I never counted mine, probably about 100 plants and that was enough for fresh eating through June, and saving enough for 2 batches of jam. The more you have the more you eat 
Even everbearing slow down in the heat of the summer, and the fall crop is small. I would say most of mine are June bearing too.
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Thanks, Drew. How many people does that amount cover for you? I have the equivalent of 6+ adults here.
I say expand until your satisfied. As you probably already know each plants will add 6-20 new plants per year so don’t over buy unless you want it all now. Good luck, Bill
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Yes they multiply fast. I only buy 1-3 plants of any type. I had one White D strawberry plant, and I have at least 25 now in 2 years. I could have had about 100 of them in 2 years. I threw away about 100 plants last fall that I cleaned out to make room for younger plants. The patch only supports so many plants. Last summer three people were sharing the strawberries. So you may need 200 plants, you could easily have as many as you can fit. Down the road, let us know how it worked out for 6.
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I put in 150 total, 50 June bearing and 100 Mara De Bois. I know I could have put in less and waited patiently for them to fill in with runners, but I’m early in my fruit misadventures and Strawberries seemed like one of the few things I could grow and get to taste this year. So they’ll be the thing to keep me happy while I wait for other plants to provide fruit next year or even further down the line. Plus they’re pretty cheap when bought in bulk.
I have 4 people in my family and plenty of neighbors who would be happy if I find myself with excess. I think the big question is how many do you need/want per day or week? If I put a pound of strawberries on the counter from the store before dinner is ready, they can easily be gone in a few hours if people are in a grazing mood. I don’t know what to expect from my plants in terms of output, but I dare them to try to outproduce our stomachs!
I’m mostly looking forward to the Mara’s this year since I can’t expect much from the June bearing yet. We do have a patch of very delicious Alpines as well. I’m pretty sure none of those have made it further than a foot or 2 from the patch before being consumed.
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Let the Mara De Bois ripen long enough and they start tasting like alpines. Hard to keep them on the plant long enough! I heard about a taste test in CA, not sure what cultivars were included? But Albion won hands down. I have to pick that one up sometime!
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