Topic: Raising strawberries...

[picman]

Over the years we have had very good, good, bad and very bad years growing strawberries, Had most success in raised boxes (2' x 8' ) but suffered from vine weevil and resorted to nemotoads , but  lost a lot of this years crop ( Honeyhove , Cambridge favourite ) to squirrels ! bless ! . I saw a pick your own in Northamptonshire  were using raised strawberry grow bags , so having a experiment with this method , watering have to be organised as there are 10 plants per bag . any advice appreciated .... 

[lottie lou]

Nice set up.  I inserted three upside down plastic bottles , with the bottoms cut off, down the centre of the grow bag to make watering easier.  A lottie neighbour said she ran perforated hose through her bags

[squeezyjohn]

That looks like a good solid construction ... as long as you're able to keep it watered easily it should work fine for you ... but in grow-bags it will not take in any rain from the sky so will need to be watered all year round ... not just in the summer.

I've had a similarly bad year for pests nicking my strawbs - in my case mice and voles were the culprits.  I can't be on site every other day to water so I've also devised a different kind of new bed for mine.  It's a fairly standard raised bed but with a built in frame for netting the plants.  It has wire mesh not only around the edges of the frame, but also under the soil to prevent tunnelling rodents - hopefully it's buried deep enough that the plants should have no trouble getting their roots through it.  It should be like Fort Knox now!

[squeezyjohn]

By the way ... I've bought this "everbearing" variety called Mara des Bois which should produce through the summer and in to early autumn.  This effectively means that they will be flowering and fruiting at the same time.  Does anyone know if netting the fruit from the birds will stop bees from getting in and pollinating the flowers?

[picman]

squeezy...  We have bee hives on site , and their keeper seemed to think they will get through the net 15mm mesh... I was going to make the end removable , still could , I will leave door open when flowering,, water ...  your note taken... thanks .... the bags have drain holes so thinking of a plan to rig some drip feed ... little grey cells still turning ...

[squeezyjohn]

I'm sure you probably knew all that anyway picman, but these pick your own places have far more infrastructure than the average allotment!  They will all use drip-irrigation as standard on their plants if they're off the ground.

I'm a firmly plants in the ground chap ... I can't be there every day ... and the gift of dew, rain, and capilliary action up from ground water far outweighs anything a grow bag or pot could ever give me on the plot.

Thanks for the tips on bees ... I shall make sure I don't use something too narrow on the top of my raised bed - that's mainly to deter birds ... apparently mice can squeeze through 10mm mesh! so I'm glad I used 5mm mesh underneath and on the sides.  But a bee would have problems with that size.

[pumkinlover]

Impressive set up. 

[Paulines7]

Our strawberries are in a row of growbags and are about 3ft above the ground.  We have a soaker hose which we turn on manually when required and we fix it to a tap with a timer when we go away.  We have made a frame around it from the poles of disused gazebos and we put netting over it when the fruit is forming.  We have a similar frame over our row of blackcurrants.  Here are some pictures of the strawberries.

[strawberry1]

I had an above ground system, gro bags on a stand. We don`t have any outside tap so watering was by hand and was an utter chore and nightmare. Then we got vine weavils so that was that and I got rid of the whole kit, stand, covers, the lot. I rescued enough plants to get going in the ground on the allotment, put them on ridges and got a wonderful trouble free crop, so much so that I used the runners and have planted another bed. I am only growing two types on the allotment ie ken muir and alice, which seem to survive anything and I freeze the excess as there is just me. The reason for not having continual picking up there is because I get the strawberries done and dusted before the other berries. Makes life so much easier on the allotment, in the ground

[small]

That's given me hope, Strawberry, I'm determined to master strawberries...last year I grew them in large pots on a bench outside my greenhouse, but watering was a nightmare and then the squirrels were a pain. I've created a new bed and put them in the ground , on ridges as you say, so I'm hopeful this will be better if I can keep the squirrels off with better netting. Do you have any trouble with slugs?