Topic: Strawberries how difficult are they?

[davholla]

A friend is giving away some strawberry plants - how easy are they to grow?  I was thinking of having them between apple trees.
Are birds a problem?  I have tried in containers with no success - possibly because we have rats in the garden.
(These will be grown in the allotment).

[Tee Gee]

A friend is giving away some strawberry plants - how easy are they to grow?  I was thinking of having them between apple trees.
Are birds a problem?  I have tried in containers with no success - possibly because we have rats in the garden.
(These will be grown in the allotment).

I found them very easy to grow particularly on the allotment providing they are in a sunny location!

http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Content/S/Strawberry/Strawberry.htm

[davholla]

A friend is giving away some strawberry plants - how easy are they to grow?  I was thinking of having them between apple trees.
Are birds a problem?  I have tried in containers with no success - possibly because we have rats in the garden.
(These will be grown in the allotment).

I found them very easy to grow particularly on the allotment providing they are in a sunny location!

http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Content/S/Strawberry/Strawberry.htm

That says
"Only plant certified disease free stock!"
Is it ok to take some from a friend?

[cudsey]

They are fairly easy to grow I just need to net them because of the pigeons on next doors allotment

[Tee Gee]

"Only plant certified disease free stock!"
Is it ok to take some from a friend?

You could ask him if he has/had disease problems.

Also check if he is giving you "parent plants" rather than newly rooted runners!

The parent plants might be quite old e.g more than 3 years old! If you get these then the chances of getting disease is higher plus they will  be weakened, usually I threw away plants that were more than 3 years old!

I must admit when I exhibited Dahlias & Chrysants we were very careful as both can be virused, so getting them from a fellow grower was generally safer than buying them from a nursery because we new their history! So my guess is; The plants you are getting are 'thinnings" i.e. rooted runners that are crowding out each other!

[Beersmith]

If you can get them planted soon they will have plenty of time to get established before it gets too cold.  This should make them strong enough to produce a good crop next year.

I constantly renew my strawberries.  Each year as soon as I am able after cropping is over, I peg down enough runners to provide an additional two or three rows.  These get put into final position late summer / early autumn.  They never fail to crop heavily the following year.  So I have some rows of one year, two year old and three year old plants.  Each year as soon as the crop from the three year old plants is over they get dug out.  They deteriorate if older.  This means you can never have a permanent fixed strawberry bed.

If you net to deter birds you will need a net size that keeps off thrush / black bird / starling  sizes birds. In my location these are a bigger pest on strawberries than pigeons.

Good luck.  They will taste superb!