Grow Your Own Magazine

I have just bought a couple of Alpne strawberries which already are sending out a fair quantity of runners. I want to get them planted out as soon as possible but don't know whether they like sun or shade, rich soil of not, a plot to themselves, in a shrubery or anything else peculiar. I presume that, being the tiny ones, they are the same (more or less) as Fraises du bois (wild strawberries?) so should they be in a wood?

Gela

I don't know the traditional answer but my alpine strawberries arrived courtesy of the birds last autumn and have been brilliant this year, growing happily on the shadey side at the base of some large shrubs and spreading like wildfire!

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mine are just in a bed in the allotment, well away from normal strawberries. They are in full sun and a moderate clay soil. They are shooting out runners and have some fruit on them so they must be fairly happy.

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http://countersthorpeallotment.blogspot.com/
Updated 8 June 2008

Dunno, grew mine from see this year. They're fruiting really well though but not noticed runners yet (assuming that alpine strawberries spread in the same way as their larger cousins?!?)

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Thanks for the info: I have cleared a space for them on the edge of a line of trees and shrubs and in a fairly shady position. I bought them in pots and one is already sending out runners. No fruit yet, but I wasn't expecting any until next year. From the sound of it they don't sound too difficult to grow and it looks as though once they do start there's no stopping them. Let's hope it works out for us all.

Gela

As alpine strawbs are close relatives of wild strawbs which are woodland plants they are fairly shade tolerant, I use them as ground cover beneath cordon apples and other fruit bushes, they do a really good job covering the soil and are productive to boot. Interestingly the blackbirds do n't seem to bother with them, while they scoff the larger cultivated strawbs.

That sounds like a good idea,did use a weed membrane as well?

Our strawberry bed is now 80% wild strawberries/fraise de bois. It's exposed on a bank, gets full sun every day and gets watered when it rains - double amounts because the overflow from the water butts is channeled towards the bed tho it may get some water from the butt when it's really hot during the day.

Also have them under the raspberry bushes as ground cover on raised beds, works a treat.

Excellent crops and they really look after themselves, they'll self destruct when they're past cropping and you just have to weed out the dead bits. Just restrict them a bit because they'll take over the world.

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TonyF, Dordogne 24220

No membrane, just composted bark which the runners readily root into so if you start with a few they soon spread and format a carpet on no time.

Thanks Mugsy will give that a bash I think.