Why grow strawberries

I use a rating system to help me decide what to grow and it considers lots of factors, but the main ones are how tasty it is, how healthy it is to eat, how expensive it is to buy, how big it's harvest is, when it's harvest period is and whether I can buy it organically and if not how much it's sprayed.

Strawberries rate quite high, they are extremely tasty and probably the heathiest sweet treat around and expensive to buy. They are also the earliest sweet taste available to harvest, although new season carrots are close and mangetout peas not long after. Importantly they are one of the most sprayed commercial crops. Their only downside and it's a big one, is that they occupy a lot of ground, for a relatively short harvest period. However their benefits far outweigh their downsides.

Types of strawberries

I like to think of many crops in the same way I think of potatoes. There are first-earlies, which I force for a very early crop in spring. Then second earlies, which I grow for harvest in early summer, followed by my main crop in mid-summer. There are also ever-bearing strawberries that you can think of like your 'Christmas' potatoes, which you can harvest up to the first frost.

I’ve recently been experimenting with super-early potatoes - ready in April - so I thought it only fitting that I do super-early strawberries too, also for a harvest in April!

https://airtable.com/shrAUlr60x4ptkpMG

Strawberry Vareties

https://airtable.com/appZUuG0p5vkxzPmp/shrpjbiOlFLQb35W1

Lets take a quick look at each of these:

Super earlies (for a April harvest)

https://youtu.be/bEVRutawndI

<aside> 💡 You will often see articles in magazines or by plant suppliers squeezing multiple plants into a container, don't do it. I just think they are trying to sell you more plants! A single healthy plant will give you a better yield than lots of stressed one in my view.

</aside>

I’ve been experimenting with very early and very late strawberries. The best varieties for this are ever-bearing ones like Mara-de-bois and Seascape, but early varieties like Cambridge Favourite should work too. There are lots of techniques to try and get strawberries to break dormancy, some involve buying specially nurtured runners. I don’t use these techniques, this is what I do.

  1. I pot up second year runners in September into hanging baskets and let them get well established. Alternatively use last years hanging basket plants (see later). I keep them outside
  2. In late January I bring them into the house and place them under my grow lights for about 14-21 days. At this time of year my grow lights are not used for anything else, so they are just sitting there idle, although they will soon be used for peppers, which is why I choose this timing.
  3. After 10-14 days you should notice that the heat and light has triggered strong new growth, i.e. winter dormancy has been broken, ideally they will have had plenty of frosts in November and December, if not it might be best to wait a little longer into February, ideally you will see buds forming