Gardeners who are looking to include fruit in their landscape have many choices. From small fruit to tree fruit, gardeners can supplement the edible production of their landscape with many well-adapted fruit plantings around the home. For gardeners who are simply looking to plant one fruit crop, strawberries may be the best bet.
Strawberries need full sun in order to grow well and produce sweet fruit. Because they will not tolerate poorly-drained soil, many gardeners opt to plant strawberries in raised beds. The added benefit of planting in raised beds is that it helps to keep the planting from spreading out of bounds. This usually requires a little work because strawberries hastily put out daughter plants on runners throughout the season.
It’s these daughter plants that make strawberries such an economical addition to the garden. Gardeners can rely on plants to fill in large spaces, reducing the number of plants that need to be purchased for the initial planting. Most gardeners maintain a “matted row” of strawberry plants. This is the simplest form of maintenance, where daughter plants are allowed to root wherever they land.
There are three types of strawberries that can be grown in the Midwest: June-bearing, everbearing, and day-neutral varieties. June-bearing varieties are the most common, but the case can be made for home gardeners to consider everbearing or day-neutral plantings. June-bearing varieties will produce one flush of flowers in early-to-mid-spring followed by a single crop of berries in June. Flower production in these varieties initiates when day length becomes greater than night length, so botanically these plants are classified as long-day plants.
Day-neutral varieties, on the other hand, will produce flowers and fruit about every 6 weeks independent of day length. However, since these varieties do not set flower buds when temperatures are above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, their production periods are essentially the same as ever-bearing varieties. The term ever-bearing is a misleading as varieties in this class can be expected to produce a typical June crop, but also a smaller fall crop. Gardeners who are seeking a strawberry planting that will provide fruit both in early summer and in the fall should consider day-neutral and/or everbearing varieties, but keep these plantings separate from any June-bearing strawberry plants because maintenance for these types differ significantly.
June-bearing plantings need to be renovated annually in order to maintain health and vigor. A well-maintained planting will offer an abundance of fruit for about four years, whereas a planting that is not renovated annually can be expected to provide only a couple of years of good production. Day-neutral and everbearing varieties do not require renovation, but can be expected to provide good harvests for about three years.
In the planting year, remove all flowers from June-bearing plants to encourage better root development and daughter plant production. Flowers of day-neutral and everbearing varieties should be removed in the planting year only until about the middle of June. Flowers left on these varieties after the middle of June will produce a fall crop. This is one of the major benefits of these varieties: gardeners get a crop, albeit small, in year one.
Regardless of which strawberries you choose to plant, mulch them through the winter. Mulches should be applied to the plantings after the plants have been subjected to a few freezes in the mid-20s to ensure that the plants have been appropriately acclimated to cold temperatures.
To learn more about strawberry production in the home garden, look for the MU Extension Publication “Home Fruit Production: Strawberry Cultivars and Their Culture” at http://extension.missouri.edu.
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