How To Grow Strawberries: A Simple Gardening Guide

The type of strawberries you choose to grow may depend on the resources you have available and may affect the way you raise your plants. There are three main types of strawberry plants:

• Summer-fruiting: Typically the most popular strawberry variety because they produce large fruit in bumper crops from early to mid summer. Examples of summer-fruiting strawberries include Honeoye, Sweetheart and Cambridge Favourite
• Perpetual-fruiting: Producing small crops of fruit over a long period, often from spring until the first frost, perpetual-fruiting strawberries don’t require as much growing space as their summer-fruiting relatives. Examples of perpetual-fruiting (or ‘everbearing’) strawberries include Flamenco, Aromel and Balero
• Alpine: Sometimes referred to as ‘wild’ or ‘woodland’ strawberries, Alpine strawberry plants produce smaller and sweeter berries than other varieties and so are well suited to growth in containers, pots, or baskets. Examples of Alpine strawberries include Mignonette, Baron, Solemacher, and Scarlet Wonder

If you plant a variety of different strawberries, you’ll be able to grow and harvest your fruit over a longer period of the year

One of the most attractive things about growing strawberries is their flexibility: strawberries can grow in gardens, plant pots, hanging baskets - or anywhere you have space. Ideally, you’ll find a position where your strawberry plants can get a lot of sun, are sheltered from wind and birds, and where their fruit can be picked easily at harvest. Avoid growing your strawberries in spots that get a lot of frost because the cold might damage any early flowering varieties

If your growing spot doesn’t get a lot of sunlight, don’t worry: you could opt for Alpine strawberries is that actually do better in a bit of shade

Strawberries are such a rewarding fruit to grow because of the relatively short time it takes for them to mature It usually takes around four months for a strawberry to grow from a seed to a berry-producing plant. That timescale is obviously dependent on certain environmental conditions, including temperature, light exposure, access to water, and the quality of the soil 

You can track your strawberry plant’s growth through the following phases:

Seedling - 0 to 8 weeks: If you’re growing from seeds you’ll need to plant about 8 weeks before the first frost. You should start to see leaves forming from around 2 weeks of growth 

Vegetative - 8 to 12 weeks: In the vegetative phase, healthy strawberry plants start to form lots of green foliage

Flowering - 12 to 14 weeks: Following the development of foliage, you’ll start to see flowers - which could eventually become strawberries. Many owners opt to remove flowers during the first year of growth so that the roots and foliage can flourish, and that the plant becomes stronger in the long term. Strawberry flowers are edible, so if you do prune them, you could throw them in a salad 

Fruiting - 14 weeks onward: After strawberry flowers are pollinated successfully, fruit should develop. Strawberry fruits are usually white when they first develop but then swell in size over the next couple of weeks and turn a bright, rich red. Once that happens, they’re ready to pick and eat!