Grow Your Own Magazine

I've ordered a bunch of strawberry plants which should be arriving any day now. I've just built some raised beds which I'll be using for veg and want to grow my strawbs in pots, troughs or hanging baskets, can anyone recommend anything, 30 plants in total. Tradition cottage style garden.

I've lifted mine this year and put them in a mixture of wall pots and grow bags, the grow bags are on one of the "Wilko 4 tier greenhouses" (cover not used) against a south facing wall.

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terracotta pots are nice but you have to make sure you plants are well watered as they dry out alot quicker ive always had my strawberries in either large pots or even a hanging baskets to detter slugs. old wheel barrows are really good and look quite good at the bottom of the garden another way is to get 3 differant size pots large at the bottom fill with compost place next size up and so on then plant the strawberries round the inside edges as a space saver good for differant varieties so you hve strawberries thoughout the warm season

I inherited a couple of scruffy old wheelbarrows when I bought the house, what an excellent idea. How many plants would you put into each?

mine are this year in an old wooden trough that we found in the 'cave'....i think it was part of the winemaking equipment

i've been making troughs out of old wooden pallets.. apart from the nails, wood stain and binbags to line them with they're totally free.. takes about 2 hours to get one made and uses a couple of pallets each

I've got some old scaffolding planks lying around, I could easily bash them into some troughs.

How many strawb plants would you plant into a wheelbarrow and would you mix the varieties?

eight to ten should go in, depending on the variety you have to bare in mind what you are going to do with the runners do you plan to plant them for next year ? or are you just going to cut them off and discard, or are you going to throw old plants and save the runners, you have alot of strawberry plants you jam making ???

bare in mind you will need to put a few holes in the wheel barrow and i reckonmend gravel and a layer of sand for drainage, they like to wet but not sodden as they can be prone to mildew, and if you have lots of birds i would cover with some form of netting i used old curtain nets for a while, but fruit netting looks better,
i've got 3 varieties in one of my pots and they have done fine so i can have them throughout the year, but this was due to lack of space other wise i would of kept them separate.

wooden pallets are great im trying to get enough to make a 3 tiered herb planter, just used them to edge my veg boarder too.

Well, one thing for sure, there's plenty of holes in the old wheelbarrows., LOL.

I have lots of brambles in the garden. Popped them all in the freezer last year and made jam with them last month, completely delicious. I'm not crazy on strawb jam but like them fresh, love to bake so I would imagine there will be a lot of strawberry cheesecakes, strawberry flans, strawberry teas, strawberry gateaux, etc. I heard about 2-3lbs per week per 10 plants. How many weeks could this go on for in a decent summer?

Not sure about this runner business, so will ask lots of questions when the time comes.

the runners are the babies so with 30 plants you could have at least double next year AT LEAST

yep they are!.. happily i do a bit of teaching every now and again, and the college I work at are having anew block built so I keep pinching them off the builders.... there's and endless supply.. though they clearly think I'm a bit mental

ive got mine in the platic troughs 5-6 plants and have grown my plants in these for the last 4 years i find there lighter and moveable.

hahahaha at mental i carried home 4, 7 ft fence post 'son my shoulder for a mile, i got lots of funny looks from people but strangely not one white van driver offered to help as they drovw past oooo time for new subject me thinks

Had a strawberry planter for a birthday presie a couple of years ago. When the runners reached ground level placed in pots and then cut them and overwintered in cold frame. Found watering difficult so following year placed a plastic pipe in the middle of the tub with some holes at various levels up the planter. This worked better than not putting in the pipe. Only problem is the volume of plants you could generate and with different varieties these days, which ones to go for.

How many strawb plants do you think you could fit into one of those green plastic pop up garden tidy bins if you put them in the top and cut holes around the body of the bin?

not sure what those garden tidy things are but for a guide the troughs i use are about 2ft long about 1ft wide and about 1 1/2ft deep in this i get about 5-6 strawberry plants, i find they do very well although books ect suggest bigger spacing i find i get plenty of fruit and as ive said before i let the plants on edge of trough do runners and not the others, when runner got roots and big enough to plant i put a plant pot of compost at side of trough and plant in there, then if im keeping plant up 5 a trough in nov or sell them at car boots or friends ect. im getting some freebies tomorrow so will be planting and some of mine in the troughs are flowering already about 12 flowers on one of the plants.

I planted out 10 in my old wheelbarrow this afternoon, should look really good in the summer.

cool what are you doing with the other 20 you decided yet

Going to use one of those green pop up garden tidy thingies, plant them on top and around the sides, also going to use these for potatoes too.

Got a load of sandy loam being delivered next week to mix through the clay soil in my raised beds, help break it down a little. Hopefully get the spuds in next week.

Like your Bunny!

Slugs got mine in the ground last year, so dug most of them up and put them in pots in greenhouse. Looked today and I've got 3 strawberries which the slugs definitely won't be getting

I was going to grow my in growbags on shelves in a cheap plastic greenhouse/coldframe but then decided the structure wasn't strong enough so I've transferred them to beds.

When I put them in the growbags I had a few too many so I planted them in pots too and kept them in the greenhouse.

See what I found today ....

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