Strawberries? Which ones?
Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2014 2:02 am
I have about 130 square feet of raised garden beds (about 12" high). I originally built them as 6" high Mittleider beds (sand and sawdust mix), but I got tired of that strategy. So I decided to double them up to 12" high and fill the top half with bags of Compost and Cow Manure mix from Lowes.
I was told that if I plant strawberries in the fall (September here in Kansas, hardiness zone 6a), that will give them a couple months of root development before they go dormant. This would allow them to produce good fruit the following year.
My first question ... Is that right? Or did I clear the bed out for nothing? lol
My second question would be ... Which variety of strawberry should I plant? I'm planning on following the Square Foot Gardening plan with the bed this year, and they recommend four strawberry plants per square foot. At first that seemed rather crowded, but after growing some strawberries about 6" apart in another garden, I can see how it'll work.
The problem I'm running into .. no pun intended .. is the strawberry runners. The variety I bought from Lowe's last year (already about 4" high at the time) were Ozark Beauty's and they seem to produce about 14 runners per strawberry. My scissors are starting to go dull just from clipping off the runners (okay, maybe a little exaggeration).
I've been trying to find some runnerless varieties, but I'm not having any luck (unless I want to buy seeds and propagate them myself). So I've been considering another strategy .. plant 2 strawberries per square foot instead of 4, then just allow them to run free until they find a balance (hopefully without strangling each other out).
So, can any of you direct me towards a low-runner (or runnerless) variety that will produce large to very large strawberries ... and most importantly .. that are actually available for purchase right now so I can plant them next week-ish? I've tried searching, Google has been a disappointment. I'm hoping you good folks are up to the challenge.
Thanks in advance,
Ed
I was told that if I plant strawberries in the fall (September here in Kansas, hardiness zone 6a), that will give them a couple months of root development before they go dormant. This would allow them to produce good fruit the following year.
My first question ... Is that right? Or did I clear the bed out for nothing? lol
My second question would be ... Which variety of strawberry should I plant? I'm planning on following the Square Foot Gardening plan with the bed this year, and they recommend four strawberry plants per square foot. At first that seemed rather crowded, but after growing some strawberries about 6" apart in another garden, I can see how it'll work.
The problem I'm running into .. no pun intended .. is the strawberry runners. The variety I bought from Lowe's last year (already about 4" high at the time) were Ozark Beauty's and they seem to produce about 14 runners per strawberry. My scissors are starting to go dull just from clipping off the runners (okay, maybe a little exaggeration).
I've been trying to find some runnerless varieties, but I'm not having any luck (unless I want to buy seeds and propagate them myself). So I've been considering another strategy .. plant 2 strawberries per square foot instead of 4, then just allow them to run free until they find a balance (hopefully without strangling each other out).
So, can any of you direct me towards a low-runner (or runnerless) variety that will produce large to very large strawberries ... and most importantly .. that are actually available for purchase right now so I can plant them next week-ish? I've tried searching, Google has been a disappointment. I'm hoping you good folks are up to the challenge.
Thanks in advance,
Ed