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Ericacious soil for strawberries

BlenkironBlenkiron Posts: 44
in Fruit & veg
Evening all, I’ve made a raised bed filled with ericacious soil for my blueberry plants, I’m sure I’ve read that strawberry plants should be in acidic soil, I have space for the strawberry plants but I wanted to double check... should the strawberries be grown in ericacious compost in a raised bed?
thanks 
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Posts

  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    In a word, no.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • BlenkironBlenkiron Posts: 44
    punkdoc said:
    In a word, no.
    That’s good enough for me 🤣 just a standard compost mix then?
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    They're fine in anything really, but make sure they have some soil in there, not just compost.  :)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • Blue OnionBlue Onion Posts: 2,995
    You could bury some bottomless pots (just cut the bottom off some pots from the garden center recycling bin; if you don't have some at home from previous purchases) in the ericaceous soil, and fill with normal JI3 or something similar.  You'll need to water them like normal pots.. but you can fit several strawberry plants around the edges, depending on the size.  You could even ring the pots with copper tape to help with slug prevention.  
    Utah, USA.
  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    I have 1500 strawberries and a soil pH of 8.5 they do just fine, you can see wild ones growing in pretty much pure chalk, they may prefer acidic soil but they don't need it.
  • Blue OnionBlue Onion Posts: 2,995
    @Skandi, ericaceous soils are between 4-5 pH.  Acidic.  Strawberries don't mind a bit of acidic soil.. they do fine with a pH of 5-6.  As you said, they are quite tolerant of pH, so maybe they will be just fine in with the blueberries.  4 is a lot closer to 5-6 pH than 8.5!
    Utah, USA.
  • herbaceousherbaceous Posts: 2,318
    Not sure OP will be interested as this was a year ago,  but others might  :)
    "The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."  Sir Terry Pratchett
  • Blue OnionBlue Onion Posts: 2,995
    Haha.. good spot!  No idea how it came up in my 'most recent comment' list.  How bizarre.  Oops!
    Utah, USA.
  • herbaceousherbaceous Posts: 2,318
    I think that sometimes old threads are used by the spammers @Blue Onion who then get flagged and removed. That may explain its appearance more recently.

    This isolation is obviously getting to me, I must be missing reading the 'Best before date' in shops so I'm now subconsciously checking all sell by dates  :D 
    "The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it."  Sir Terry Pratchett
  • Blue OnionBlue Onion Posts: 2,995
    @herbaceous. You are hilarious.   :D   The people picking out my groceries are not reading the sell-by date.. English muffins last week came EIGHT days expired!  Thanks for pointing out my mistake.. I'll try to keep a better eye in the future.

    Hope they found a solution for their strawberries.. hopefully @Blenkiron gives me an update.
    Utah, USA.
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