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 Strawberries are a temperate plant. They can thrive in the chilly weather in the northern regions of the world and can even thrive at altitude on mountains. But, everyone loves strawberries, not just folks who happen to live in the optimal agricultural zones for growing the sweet strawberries. This post is to help the hot and humid gardeners find strawberries for Zone 9 that will perform adequately and allow an ample harvest.
There are three main areas that fall into Zone 9: California, Texas, and Florida. This simple post will help you choose a good strawberry variety for your area if you are a Zone Niner. To find out which Zone you are in, see the Zone Map on this Strawberry Planting Guide.
Continue reading Zone 9 Strawberries
 0023 : Strawberry Plants Library
This is an entry in the Strawberry Plants Library here at Strawberry Plants .org. Continue reading for summarized information. The entire resource may be accessed or downloaded by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.
Continue reading Growing Strawberries in Wisconsin
Spring brings forth visions of harvest in the minds of home gardeners everywhere as they look at freshly planted gardens. As most gardeners know, everything does best when planted at its optimal time. Planting strawberries is no different. This strawberry planting guide will show you when you should put your strawberry plants in the ground. If you haven’t yet purchased any, you can follow this link to buy strawberry plants.
The following table tells you when to plant strawberry plants according to the U.S. agricultural zones:
Continue reading Strawberry Planting Guide
 Companion planting has a long, storied history. Individuals have noted benefits (and drawbacks) when certain plant species are grown in close proximity to one another for hundreds of years, and many books have been written on the topic. Interestingly, the scientific causes of many of these relationships are not fully understood. But, the principles work and the beneficial symbiotic relationships can be measured among many types of plants.
The increased biodiversity is usually beneficial, but the planting of various plants in close proximity often yields multifaceted benefits. Two of the primary benefits are pest control and increased yield. There are many resources available to help develop a garden (or even a permaculture) that thrives based on mutual assistance and inter-connectivity of well-planned companion planting layouts. The purpose of this post, however, is to deal specifically with companion plants for strawberry plants and what benefits can be achieved by companion planting strawberries in your garden.
Continue reading Companion Planting Strawberries
 Strawberry plants are a wonderful forb. Their life cycle is much more complicated than the simple appearance of the humble strawberry plant implies. The growth cycle of strawberry plants spans the entire year and repeats annually. The life cycle of strawberry plants begins either from seed or from runner plants, and continues until senescence. This post is an overview of the life of a strawberry plant from germination until withered, brown leaves signify the passage from life unto death.
The Growth Cycle of Strawberry Plants
As with any cyclical scenario, it is difficult to choose a starting point (which came first, the chicken or the egg?). For the purposes of describing the life cycle of strawberry plants, a dual starting point will be considered as a sprouted strawberry seedling and a new strawberry runner. While both of these starting points require the existence prior life, a discussion of the origins of life is outside the purview of this article.
Continue reading Life Cycle of Strawberry Plants
 During the cold months of bitter chill and cabin fever of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, Green Thumbs everywhere begin to wistfully ponder the coming day when breaking ice gives way to breaking soil. When it is too cold outside to do much gardening and the only growing things are the icicles on the neighborhood gutters, many anxious gardeners sit down and plan their gardens. Which fruits and vegetables will be grown? How much space to allot to the staples and how much to unique, new, or exotic varieties? What will the layout be? Should the garden be planted in rows or according to the principles of square foot gardening?
Just thinking about it gets a Green Thumb’s sap flowing!
This year, consider sending out your runners in a new direction. If you have even a square foot or two of extra space in your fertile soil, consider planting a few pineberry plants. Pineberries are hybrid strawberries just like the normal strawberries you buy at the store or grow from ordered plants. The difference can be seen in the photo above. They are white strawberries with bright red seeds! And, they get their name from their unique pineapple/strawberry taste: PINEapple + strawBERRY = PINEBERRY.
If you are interested in learning about or growing this unique strawberry variety in your garden this year, you might want to click the following link now…
Continue reading Introducing the Pineberry
 0017 : Strawberry Plants Library
This is an entry in the Strawberry Plants Library here at Strawberry Plants .org. Continue reading for summarized information. The entire resource may be accessed or downloaded by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.
Continue reading North Carolina Strawberries
 Introduction to the Matted Row System
The matted row system of growing strawberries is decades old. It was developed after the modern Garden Strawberry became the dominant strawberry grown (see the Strawberry Plant reference page for more details). Growing strawberries in the matted row system has multiple benefits. Chief among them is increased yields over all but the modern commercial methods.
By using the matted row, gardeners and some commercial growers can take advantage of the unique characteristics of strawberry plants in order to get the most out of their land, out of their effort, and for their taste buds. This post is an introductory article to the matted row system.
Continue reading Matted Row System
 The biggest strawberry producer in the world is the state of California. But, as dominantly productive as the strawberry growers in that state are, other regions of the United States are quite productive as well. Florida is also known as a big-time strawberry state. The standard method used in each of those two states is the typical commercial plasticulture method.
What many people do not know is that North Carolina, and particularly the coastal regions, also has a booming strawberry industry. And, the methods used in that state are spreading to the surrounding regions. In the mid-1980s, NC strawberry growers and NC State University partnered to develop a better way to grow strawberries in the state. The work of this pairing led to slight adaptations of the California and Florida plasticulture practices which resulted in the Southeastern plasticulture method. Southeastern Plasticulture strawberries can be lucrative venture. This post is a brief introduction.
Continue reading Southeastern Plasticulture Strawberries
 0015 : Strawberry Plants Library
This is an entry in the Strawberry Plants Library here at Strawberry Plants .org. Continue reading for summarized information. The entire resource may be accessed or downloaded by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.
Continue reading Renovating Strawberry Plants
 Have you ever seen those hideous, misshaped strawberries? If so, you might have wondered what causes deformed strawberries to be that way. Well, Strawberry Plants .org is dedicated to bringing light to all things related to the strawberry plant. And, unfortunately, deformed strawberries are a fact of life.
Hopefully, with the information contained within this post, you will never have to deal with your own mutant strawberries. Who wants to eat hideous fruit when nice, red, symmetrical fruit can be had? But, if you find yourself out in the strawberry bed picking your own deformed strawberries, here is what you need to know:
Continue reading Deformed Strawberries
 Nourse Farms is a large supplier of strawberry plants. Their farm is located in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. To gain a better understanding of what is involved in growing strawberry plants commercially, watch this multi-part series that was produced by Nourse Farms. It covers more than just growing strawberries, but is interesting for anyone interested in strawberry production and commercial strawberry growers.
Enjoy!
Continue reading Strawberry Plants at Nourse Farms
 How Do You Store Bare-Root Strawberry Plants?
People love their gardens. Great care and devotion are given to raising fruits and vegetables by thousands of people every single day. But, what happens if unforeseen circumstances arise? What if a move is required, for whatever reason? Well, when it comes to the garden, it gets left behind. Strawberry growers, however, can take their strawberries with them since they are perennial. Special storage is required when transporting your strawberry plants from one patch to another. Here is what you need to know about storing bare-root strawberry plants…
Continue reading Storing Bare-Root Strawberry Plants
 In order to maximize the production of June-bearing strawberry plants grown in the traditional matted row system, a process called “strawberry renovation” should be undertaken after the strawberries have been harvested. By beginning strawberry renovation immediately after harvest is complete, multiple strawberry pests are more effectively controlled, other pathogens like leaf spot are contained or eliminated, and more strawberry runners will be formed and established causing the harvest for the next season to be larger.
The entire process of renovating strawberries should be completed by late July in most areas. It should be noted that most commercial strawberry producers have moved away from traditional matted row production, now use plasticulture, and grow strawberries as annuals instead of perennials. So, this guide to renovating strawberry plants will most likely be of benefit to home gardeners or small-scale strawberry growers. Additionally, the traditional methods used during the renovation of strawberry plants are not organic.
With that said, here are the 10 traditional steps used in strawberry renovating:
Continue reading Strawberry Renovation
 For anyone seriously considering starting a commercial strawberry farm, cost calculations are critical. Most strawberry farms fail due to the farmer’s lack of economic knowledge, not their lack of farming knowledge. One of the basic questions that must be answered when considering the numbers is how many strawberry plants per acre should be planted.
Generally, a new strawberry farm should start small. Calculating the number of strawberry plants per acre is much easier and less risky when the farmer doesn’t jump in with both boots. The first planting for a newbie berry farmer should be around 1/2 acre to 1 acre of planted strawberries. This allows the budding strawberry business to grow as the farmer learns (without suffering a bankrupting loss if the learning is through the school of hard knocks).
Regardless, this chart will help satisfy the curious or give the prospective commercial grower a place to start:
Continue reading Strawberry Plants Per Acre
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