strawberries

[Charlie Farley]

Ok, im new to all this, so please dont laugh!
I want to have strawbs in hanging baskets next summer. Should i be buying plants now and putting them in or should i be growing them from seed next spring??
Can they also stay in the hanging baskets perminantly?
Oooh and anyone know any good varieties for them?
Thanks Charlie

[veg4681]

I don't know about growing strawberry from seeds but I think it's just as easier to buy the plant from garden centres or even B&Q stores during Spring for early variety and then in late Summer for late growing variety.

I'm not sure that I've come across a specific hanging basket strawberry (that you would get with tumbling/trailing type cherry tomatoes) but there are those variety promoted as being suitable for 'container growing'.

I got a set of 3 Strawberry bare roots from Wilko for £1.50 earlier this year and they've grown into fine healthy plants although I only had 2 fruits! I had lots of runners from these plants from which I've cut and potted them into 9 more strawberry plants so I don't know if raising from seeds is that cost effective. They say for first year, you have to compromise strawberry fruits for runners so maybe that is why I didn't get much fruit but next year, the runner will have to go.

It's possible you may be able to get late growing strawberry (harvest Aug) around this time or later at a reduced price from garden centres but this mean you have to wait for next year August for strawberry. Would you rather have the Spring onwards one? Or you could have both early and late variety.

As I'm fairly new myself, it'll be useful to hear what other seasoned strawberry growers have to say on this. I'm only talking from my experience from this year.

[Charlie Farley]

I planted a few seeds earlier this spring and they have done fantasticly well and are producing fruits at the mo (pinched out the runners thou-ooops)- will allow to run next year. dont know if these are gonna be ok in hanging baskets thou??? was gonna transplant them out of their pot and into the ground.
Do i need to cut these back after they have fruited??

[leona]

cut all strawbs back when they finish fruiting. all the leaves but obviously leave runners if you want them. i brought some plants back from norway and iv let those runner freely because id rather get lots of plants this year than fruit next year from that variety. other than that i leave 2 runners per year old plant. iv only grown alpine strawbs from seed, some started in april fruited already!

[vicki]

hi Charlie!

Looking back through an old GYO mag from Dec 2006, I've come across an advert for Victoriana nurseries, and they mention a srawberry for hanging baskets - it's called ' Rambling Cascade'.
Hope that helps!

[Charlie Farley]

THANK YOU VICKI!! thats really helpful

Your a star

[Dan de Lion]

Another choice for your strawberry hanging basket would be Temptation, which I'm growing from seed for the second time. You don't have to grow from seed, it's just that I'm an impulse buyer of strawberry seed.

Anyway they were fine on the allotment the first time of growing and they're fine now in my backyard mini-greenhouse. I think I have to turf them out for the cold weather as they have to have a chill in order to fruit well. They're billed as an alpine strawberry which is almost non-runner producing (mine just produced 4 or 5 babies, not counting the ones I cut off though) and from a sowing in, I think, May, one plant wanted to produce 7 fruits but I stopped it to save its strength as it was already September then. If you sowed earlier in the year you'd certainly get fruit the first year from them.