Low Maintenance Strawberries

Over the last few years, I’ve tried several ways of growing strawberries. Everything I’ve tried so far has resulted in far too many weeds. Ideally, I’d like to get it similar to my fruit trees where I can mulch the heck out of it and do very minor and infrequent touch-ups. I’m not sure if this is even a plausible possibility.

Here’s a pic of what I though would work (made in Oct 2013). It is a 30’+ long raised bed made of both tree trunks and cement blocks, with black plastic as the mulch. So, instead of having a bed-wide issue, the weeds took off in the X’s where I planted the berries. Here’s a particularly bad stretch.

Believe it or not, there are actually 2 strawberry plants hiding in the above pic. There are some plants in the bed which are OK (see below), but I’ve had to weed it more than I’d like. To remove a big weed practically requires that I remove the strawberry, separate the roots, then re-plant it.

Believe it or not, the above pic is actually an improvement of my first attempt to grow strawberries, which turned into a strawberry ground-cover mixed with big weeds. It was pretty productive though, at least in one year. That year, we got about 20 quarts of berries from something like 300 sq feet. I removed it when I made the large bed and it would be too embarrassing to post any pics of it.

Being irrationally persistent, I’ve just added another (smaller) bed for the Cabot strawberries I ordered from Indiana Berry. This time, I’m leaning toward treating them like apple- just wood-chip the heck out of it. I’ve read that Cabot doesn’t run much, so I figured that it was worth a shot. It occurred to me that I should ask the forum if anyone has any good management methods for strawberries.

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No help here just sympathy with your situation. I hope someone post a reasonable way to manage weedless strawberries. Bill

Bob, I use a thick wood flake much, that gets bonded together with Mycelium.
It turns into something like cardboard stays wet underneath and dry on top.

In my climate the tip is to get the crowns high out of the mulch so they do not get too wet.
I still have trouble with this because its weird when you plant them but any I plant too deep die.

When you are working in the garden its a treat to go pick a fresh strawberry.
My wife thinks the birds are a major pest in our strawberry patch truth is its the gardener.

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Strawberries need intensive care to produce plenty of berries. To maintain low weeds in a bed you need first to get rid of the weeds in the areas surrounding your bed and never let them go to seed. This will mean intensive weeding and/or using herbicides if you like. Then once in a one or two weeks just go around your bed and remove all the weeds when they are small and are easy to pull. All kind of mulch will definitely help but it’ll never entirely eliminate your problem. Consistency is a key and after some time you’ll spend less and less time doing the weeding job.

Bob

I moved all of mine into the pots with multiple side holes. Don’t have to fight with the weeds, snails, and slugs. Easy to water and netting.

Tony

That is a good tip. I had planned to woodchip the new bed just like I do for trees. But I hadn’t considered the need to plant higher so that the crown won’t have chips on it.

Thanks Bill- my kids like picking strawberries, so I’m giving it another try.

Getting rid of weeds doesn’t seem likely in my yard. But, the new bed is filled with weed-free medium (pine bark, perlite, Turface, composted leaves, and some clean soil which has been under a tarp for a year). Hopefully the mulch can keep things from getting established in the new bed. And I suppose if worst comes to worst, the medium is much lighter than other places I’ve grown strawberries, so weeds should come out easier.

I’ve been growing strawberries in pots for years and never get much in the way of yields. I’m probably not attentive enough in keeping them watered. But I agree it is very convenient for netting.

Somebody on this forum has grown strawberries in rain guttering. I don’t know who it was. I’d like to hear about how they went about that, whether it was used as a long planter, for hydroponics, incorporated drainage, the depth of the guttering, etc. I don’t know if it would be a possible solution for you or not, but would be interesting to hear the details about it. It may have been low maintenance or high maintenance.

Grow like weeds here. I renovate and fertilize after June harvest, add some shredded leaves in the fall.

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I know what you mean. I live in rural area surrounded by hay fields. Weed seed lands on everything and will grow on anything… even with lack of rain.

I was thinking plastic mulch with irrigation system. The plastic would have to be guaranteed to last at least 5 years so that it can be easily removed before replanting.

Otherwise, a very loose soil that can be easily weeded. I never been able to suppress weeds with mulches. Organic mulches only provide a convenient medium for weed to grow on.

Hello! I hopped on the ‘gutter’ bandwagon and its working like a charm. I planted fifty plants between two five foot long gutters last spring. Pinched off all of the blossoms last year. Left them in my potting shed all last nasty winter. Brought them out and rehung them on my railing (on deck) two weeks ago. Each berry plant already has clusters of berry blossoms. Working so far. Mrs. G

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Wow- 50 plants in 10’ is very high density. I thought I was pushing it to put 19 plants in a 8 x 2.7’ raised bed (2 rows).

If yours are all in a line, that leaves only 2.4" per plant. The crown itself is almost that wide. When you get a chance, can you please post a pic of how this arrangement looks? It sounds pretty promising.

The weeds around here are not like yours, not that bad!
I found a bunch of window box type containers, and use them for strawberries. When i say found, I mean when trash hunting. People were throwing them out. I like to clone the runners from them, makes it easy.

Bob. Only 35 plants took, so its fine; filled with berries this June- July!

Weed free. lol Aquaponics I presume.

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MrsG,
Nice. Even with only 35 plants, that is ~3.5" spacing in the 10’ row, which is pretty tight. I’m interested to see if the small volume of soil keeps the plants small, or they crowd each other. Of course, even if they crowd each other, I don’t think you’ll have them tighter than @FascistNation’s pic.

What variety did you plant? Now is pretty late for strawberries to be just getting started.

FascistNation,
That is really a neat way to grow them. I bet that this is how a lot of organic strawberries are grown- a completely controlled environment.

I wonder if they bred the berries to have longer stems, and thus make the picking easier. This would be a bad trait for normal conditions, as the berries would be on the ground.

Bob, I added new soil this spring. I think the addition of soil in the spring and fall will do the trick for a few years. Then maybe they get tossed out. It is a picture like the one above by Facist Nation that got me started. Mine are grown outdoors in the summer, then the gutters are lifted into the garden shed for the winter. No greenhouse here! I think it is very cool. I grow two varieties Mara des Bois and Honeoye. The reviews here on Honeoye were pretty bad. All I can say it is it a nice large, very red strawberry that tastes really good and is sweet to boot! And yes, they are weed free as well. After the ‘gutter growing’ strawberry pics last year I just had to try it.

mrsg47,
How often do your strawberries in the gutter need watering?

Thanks.

Once every late afternoon. It is cool. Not a huge crop, about 6-12 a day. This being their first year that I left the blossom on. :strawberry:

I have weeds all over, but I only lost my strawberries once and that was to an invasive mint my idiot neighbor planted and I did not notice until it was too late. That being said my last patch lasted about 18-20 years before the mint got it.

Essentially I replant the entire patch every year. with a 1 square foot spacing per plant. Every year after they fruit I dig all thr plants out, amend the soil with a bit of composted manure, prune all the leaves off the plants, root prune and reset the healthiest plants, 1 per square foot. Then I cover all the bare ground with two sheet of newspaper and the cover it with a think layer of wood chips. The trick is the newspaper keep the light out so weed seeds do not germinate. I usually weed in early spring and once it late fall for the odd thistle that drifts in. But to your comment, this is not low maintenance but very productive. Some years I let the runners have their way, other year as I prune all the runners off. The quality is much improved when you remove all the runners but by alternating methods you always get new young plants.

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Looks like I let it get away from me again…The top of the pic (with the cement blocks) is what it looks like after I weeded it. But, I may not bother with the rest of it- it is pretty temping to just plant some jujubes and toss on a lot of wood chips.

But, the new bed has been pretty good. I think there are a few factors:
1.) It is much closer to the house and more frequented trees, so I go past it more often and nip the weeds when they are small.
2.) A large portion of the “soil” is pine bark and perlite, so it is a lot easier to remove the weeds (without pulling the strawberry)
3.) I’m not sure if having the plastic go up to the plant encourages a weed to grow right with it, but in the new bed (without plastic), the weeds are mostly in the rows where they can be removed without pulling the strawberry.
4.) The strawberry plants are bigger, probably since I give them some water when I am watering the nearby potted plants.

Of course, I suspect that this will turn into a strawberry jungle from me not removing the runners…But I think it is still better than the above. So maybe this is to say I haven’t found any low maintenance method- just slightly more convenient…

At some point I’ll probably try MrsG’s method at some point as well.

Here’s the 3-4 month old bed (almost 7pm, so the sun is pretty low):