Strawberry Planting

It was a week later than I’d hoped.  The bed of potatoes that the strawberries were replacing lasted longer than expected but eventually the spuds came out.

After clearing the Pontiacs out of the 50 square foot bed, I weeded its edges and raked it relatively flat.  Then I sprinkled on 3.5 lbs of Alfalfa Meal and 1.5 lbs of Rock Phosphate (slow action stuff like bone meal).  I didn’t add any lime since strawberries prefer the acid end of the pH soil spectrum.

I stirred in these amendments with my little electric Mantis tiller then I re-raked the bed flat and smooth with the flat side of my bow rake.  Next, using my row marker, I ran 4 lines, each one foot apart down the length of the 4 foot by 12.5 foot bed.

In my strawberry bed I’ve been using the same strips of black polypropylene landscape fabric for several years.  These 4 foot by 1 foot pieces are a bit frayed but still block the weeds very well.  

My other pieces of equipment are some homemade staples made from wire coat hangers.  Each coat hanger is cut and bent into four 8 inch long staples that are shaped like an old guy’s wooden walking cane with a squared off handle.  The staples are pushed through the landscape fabric and into the soil to hold them in place.  

Each four-foot strip receives 6 staples – two at each end and two in the middle.  The first strip is placed across the width of the bed starting at the end of the bed.  Then I transplant four young strawberry plants along the edge of the first strip at the row marker line intersections.

A new fabric strip is then snugged along that row of four plants and stapled into place.  Then four more plants are planted for the next cross row, alternating plants and fabric strips down the length of the bed.  

The young plants were a bit more pot bound than I’d preferred.  I like the root ball to hold together when slid out of the pot but these already had some roots peeking out the bottoms of the pots.  I was at least a week late.

The new plants are watered in with some fish fertilizer and after that work there is very little left to do until the crop ripens next June.  I make sure I snip any new runners off the young plants until growth stops in the winter.  Also, there’s the occasional bit of weeding among the plants between the strips.  

During winter I re-insert any staples that are lifted by the wind or frost.  Next year in mid-March I pull the end staples, leaving the middle ones in and lift the fabric on each side to apply a bit more Alfalfa meal then gently scratch it in with a hand cultivator and re-staple the pieces back down.  In the spring, even the minor weeding is finished once the new strawberry leaves shade out any new growth.

From this year’s bed we harvested 21 lbs of exceptionally large, sweet and flavourful, Organic Shuksan Strawberries.

The more plant growth I can get this fall the better the production should be next spring with a chance to meet or beat last year’s level.  Lord willing.

Happy Gardening.