A quickie about strawberries

[organic]

In the garden I've got a planter with 6 strawberry plants (well, 5 actually, one never grew after planting out and seems totally dead now) which gave up a little bit of fruit this summer (most of which were stolen by the local birdies).

Some advice I saw was to harvest from them for 3 years then "scalp" them.
Does that just mean to cut the greenery off? Is that meant to achieve anything other than killing it?

Some other advice I saw was to cut the leaves off around now but that doesn't sound right to me somehow.

I'm somewhat at a loss.

What should I be doing with the things?

[Bigmallly]

I believe that after 3 years you should get rid of the parent plants & keep crops going from the runners they produce. I am no expert & stand corrected from one of the Guru's.

[Shadylane]

After three years scalp them? Are you sure they didn't say scrap them? Like Bigmally said they generally last 3 years before they lose their vigour alhtough apparently they can go on longer. As for the leaves - not sure. I thought you were just supposed to leave them. The leaves will die off eventually I would've thought and then produce new ones come spring.

[Two_Sheds]

You should take off the old dying leaves in autumn, along with any runners you don't want.
Leaving dying leaves to rot around the plant will only encourage slugs, woodlice and fungal diseases.

Production is supposed to be best in a strawb's 2nd and 3rd year: after that it falls off. So if you want best production every year, aim to have a succession of new plants on the go.

You don't want to wait until year 3 and then find you have no strawbs.

[organic]

Shadylane - it definitely said "scalp".
Your guess is as good as mine.

As you've all said, I thought the second and third years were the best for cropping and after that things drop off.

As for runners, I've taken this years runners (some sources say to pinch them out for the first year but I thought I'd try for having 1st, 2nd and 3rd year plants on the go each year so sticking with this way for now) and they are rooted in small pots. Is there a particular time I should cut the runner from the parent plant? I'm thinking of doing it when I next go out to remove the brown leaves.


When moving on to new soil (I've been told it's best to rotate the strawberries to avoid diseases) how far away should the plants go and how long a break before strawberries go back in?
I was thinking about having a block of soil marked out for beds A B C D so by the 3rd year it would go:
A=s1 B=s2 C=s3 D=annual herbs
then on the 4th year
A=annual herbs B=s2 C=s3 D=s4

(s2 being the second year's strawberries - that's this year's runners)
I'd then move the annual herbs into bed B for the 5th year and bed A=s5.

I may well be over-thinking this, of course!

[Two_Sheds]

Is there a particular time I should cut the runner from the parent plant?

when they're rooted: it's just like an umbilical cord.

[Shadylane]

Yeah give them a few weeks to root. As for rotation I'm sure I've read that you should move them after around three years and I would think leave at least three years before you return them to the same bed (?). Not sure about distance - I assume you mean how far apart the next bed should be after you rotate them. I wouldn't have thought it'd need to be far. Hope this makes sense.

[organic]

Cheers folks.

Shadylane - that's exactly what I meant by distance.
So from one side of a narrow path to another would do the job?

Based on this I've come up with three options - any input on them?

1> 4 bed rotation. Propagate every other year. Gives a 5 year break from strawberries for each bed. Every odd numbered year has 1 minor (first year) and 1 major (third year) crop - while the even numbered years have a single second year crop.

2> 3 bed rotation. As above, but this time only a 3 year break and less space taken up. by this rotation.

3> 6 bed rotation. Propagate every year. Gives a 3 year break from strawberries for each bed. Every year has a first, second and third year crop. It would obviously take up a good bit more space though.

I'm more inclined towards options 1 and 2, though if I had more space I'd go for 3 without hesitation.
So, any input?

[Shadylane]

Agh I have no idea but my head hurts. Sorry I don't understand how a 4 bed rotation gives a five year break. Am I being thick? Anyone else help out here? I think I'm reading it wrong or something. Are you planning on moving them every year or every three years? Either way it still doesn't compute....but your first question I would say yes, the width of a narrow path should be fine

[organic]

lowercase = first year crop
uppercase = second and third year crop

Year : 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|...............
Bed1 : a|A|A|-|-|-|-|-|e|E|E|-|-|-|-|-|i
Bed2 : -|-|b|B|B|-|-|-|-|-|f|F|F|-|-|-|-
Bed3 : -|-|-|-|c|C|C|-|-|-|-|-|g-G|G|-|-
Bed4 : -|-|-|-|-|-|d|D|D|-|-|-|-|-|h|H|H

Once you plant into a bed it stays there for 3 years. You get a first and third crop on odd years and a second year crop on even years and a 5 year break for each bed before strawberries go back in there.

In fact, I might as well copy in my similar charts for options 2 and three while I'm at it.

Option 2
Year : 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|.......
Bed1 : a|A|A|-|-|-|d|D|D|-|-|-|g
Bed2 : -|-|b|B|B|-|-|-|e|E|E|-|-
Bed3 : -|-|-|-|c|C|C|-|-|-|f|F|F


Option 3
Year : 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|.........
Bed1 : a|A|A|-|-|-|g|G|G|-|-|-|m|M
Bed2 : -|b|B|B|-|-|-|h|H|H|-|-|-|n
Bed3 : -|-|c|C|C|-|-|-|i|I|I|-|-|-
Bed4 : -|-|-|d|D|D|-|-|-|j|J|J|-|-
Bed5 : -|-|-|-|e|E|E|-|-|-|k|K|K|-
Bed6 : -|-|-|-|-|f|F|F|-|-|-|l|L|L

The last one gives a 1st, 2nd and 3rd year crop every year from year 3 onwards, though I don't know that would necessarily mean more fruit as being on an allotment the space available is rather limited so may mean less space for each crop (1st 2nd and 3rd) so dunno if it'd be worth doing.

I think they make a bit more obvious sense when drawn up like this than when in text.

If for some reason the tables above don't line up, just copy/paste the whole post into notepad and it'll make more sense. It should be fine though.

I told you I might be over-thinking it!

[Two_Sheds]

I told you I might be over-thinking it!

Yes, but it keeps you off street corners.
You can always change the soil, not the location: by adding fresh garden compost every year

[organic]

I did consider that, though I'm not sure if I'll be producing enough compost to accommodate that and normal spreading on the plot and I'm not in a rush to buy loads in.

Could it be a suitable winter job to swap soil over with one of the main beds? I dunno if that might mes up the main rotation though.

[Two_Sheds]

I did consider that, though I'm not sure if I'll be producing enough compost to accommodate that

I don't spread my compost over the whole plot: you're right, there isn't enough. So I give it to those that need it most, as a mulch: fruit.

[sweetiepea]

Gosh Organic you are organised! I used to plan out EVERYTHING in fine detail, but somehow I misread my tables one year and ended up rotating backwards instead of forwards.

[Shadylane]

I did consider that, though I'm not sure if I'll be producing enough compost to accommodate that and normal spreading on the plot and I'm not in a rush to buy loads in.

Could it be a suitable winter job to swap soil over with one of the main beds? I dunno if that might mes up the main rotation though.

There's no reason why you couldn't do that. I plan on swapping soil around for tomatoes which will be in some makeshift plastic greenhouse(in the same spot as last season) which hopefully will stay upright next year. As for your main rotation, I think you'd need to make sure you didn't swap soil with a bed where peppers, tomatoes, eggplant or potatoes had been for a few years because of verticillium wilt. But that shouldn't be a problem really.