Hi there, I am new to gardening. I'm in an urban setting so using containers on my small patio. I have a 18w x13d planter with 3 strawberry plants. They seemed to be doing well for the last three weeks. About a week ago I added a bit of 8-5-5 fertilizer and a little bit of worm castings. We had a hard freeze a couple of nights ago, so I brought the container inside for a day.
There was one leaf on one of the plants that has always looked a little weaker than the other leaves (since transplanting), with a brown spot. That leaf slowly turned completely yellow. Then an older leaf on the next plant over turned orange, totally overnight. The third plant has some red along the stems, I can't tell if it's related or not.
I've googled and found that yellow leaves could mean overwatering (definitely a possibility, we had a huge rain for two days, plus I was watering daily) or that there is a nitrogen deficiency. I looked up orange leaves and couldn't find anything, so odd.
Any ideas of what is wrong or how I could fix it? Thank you!
Mine does that usually when it is too wet or there are fungal issues. My best fix is to take it out inspect the roots and see how far gone they are. If it isn't too bad, I will pull off the dead roots and soak the plant in sulfer solution, or dust if I can find sulfur dust. Then I replant in a new pot and new soil and I make sure I don't over water. Strawberries tend to die a fungal death for me, so I keep making babies and potting up the runners and I repot whenever the water starts to puddle at the top. I will lose some eventually, they will be too far gone to save, but I usually have enough replacement babies to keep it going.
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I feel like these are planted just a smidgen too deep. The strawberries need their central "crown" to be mostly above the soil level.
The crown is the corky/woody thick stem usually about 1" between where the roots begin and leaf shoots come out. That woody part should be only half buried on the average -- a little deeper in the north to protect from heaving out with the frost/freeze cycle, and a little shallower in the south where this is not an issue.
In the DC area, I think you would only want them to be 1/3 to 1/2 buried. Try gently scraping some of the soil away and exposing the crown a bit.
The crown is the corky/woody thick stem usually about 1" between where the roots begin and leaf shoots come out. That woody part should be only half buried on the average -- a little deeper in the north to protect from heaving out with the frost/freeze cycle, and a little shallower in the south where this is not an issue.
In the DC area, I think you would only want them to be 1/3 to 1/2 buried. Try gently scraping some of the soil away and exposing the crown a bit.
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I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that you just adopt a “wait and see†attitude. In my experience (with a large strawberry patch), it’s not uncommon for leaves to turn yellow and drop off. Sometimes it’s not enough Nitrogen (which they need a lot of), too much water…any number of things. The other leaves seem to look healthy, so perhaps the plant is ok. Good luck!