SEATTLE — It's strawberry season and today Ciscoe Morris teaches us everything you need to know about growing these sweet berries!
Plant a showy strawberry pot
Until recently, pot-bellied strawberry pots, the ones with open top and planting pockets in the sides, all looked pretty much the same. Most were fashioned out of cheap terracotta, and few, if any, survived more than one winter outside. Wait until you see them now! At quality nurseries, you’ll find frost proof, glazed strawberry pots in a dazzling array of colors.
The advantage to using a strawberry pot is that the strawberries stay clean, and it's much harder for slugs to get at the fruit. When you plant, begin by adding soil in the bottom, then place the plants in the holes and pack the soil in around them inside the pot. Measure out a cup of organic flower food, and work it in to layers as you fill in until you have mixed in the entire cup.
There are lots of great types of strawberries to chose from. A favorite of mine is 'Tristar' It's ever-bearing, meaning it produces strawberries all season long, rather than only in June. Remove the first blossoms in June for larger berries later in the season.
Most strawberry plants put out runner plants. These plants are great if you have a garden with extra space, but they aren't so great for pots. It's a hard choice whether to leave them. While they will often make a very pretty cascade, they also reduce the number of strawberries the plants will produce. I recommend snipping the runners from some for high production, and allowing some to grow on the higher plants for an extra attractive pot.
Finally, don't forget to rotate the pot a little every day so that all of the plants get equal exposure to the sun.
The varieties in my pot are: Tristar (Ever-bearing) Shuksan (big, delicious berries in June) Rainier (June) Temptation (June, small, delicious and prolific) and Golden Leaf Alpine (Golden leaves, small but very delicious fruit).
Yum!
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