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Strawberries after rain

ashers23281ashers23281 Posts: 7
in Fruit & veg
This season I’ve been getting loads of strawberries and had 18 plants which were ready for picking this week.

Well, I just gone up to look at them
ready to pick tomorrow and looks like the rain we had this week has caused them to start rotting.

Well at least the birds will have a good feed now I’ve removed the netting on that section.

Posts

  • BenTheBeginnerBenTheBeginner Posts: 66
    Interesting, perhaps it didn't get the sun it needed to dry out after the rain
  • ashers23281ashers23281 Posts: 7
    BenTheBeginner said:
    Interesting, perhaps it didn't get the sun it needed to dry out after the rain
    What sun?

    Plus we had a months worth of rain in one day on Thursday here.
  • GemmaJFGemmaJF Posts: 2,286
    We had the rain here Thursday also, though I was able to pick strawberries yesterday. 
  • edhelkaedhelka Posts: 2,351
    My strawberries were badly damaged but maybe half of them was still usable for cooking/baking.
  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    Take the rotten berries off the plants don't leave them there, one rain storm or even a week of rain shouldn't be rotting everything. Leaving rotten berries on the plant will build up the spore load for next year always clear up anything diseased and dispose of it. My strawberries get through thunder storms fine, I end up losing maybe 5% of the berries to various rots if that happens (not this year though, no rain in 2 weeks and none on the forecast)
  • ashers23281ashers23281 Posts: 7
    Skandi said:
    Take the rotten berries off the plants don't leave them there, one rain storm or even a week of rain shouldn't be rotting everything. Leaving rotten berries on the plant will build up the spore load for next year always clear up anything diseased and dispose of it. My strawberries get through thunder storms fine, I end up losing maybe 5% of the berries to various rots if that happens (not this year though, no rain in 2 weeks and none on the forecast)
    That was the plan for today, maybe rotting was the wrong word but they were badly damaged.
  • ashers23281ashers23281 Posts: 7
    I’ve just been up to remove all the strawberries and can see what the issue is. The straw around the strawberries was still wet from the rain we had.

    Maybe my set-up is wrong as I have strawberries growing through strawberry matting and looks like this may have prevented the straw from drying out.
  • GemmaJFGemmaJF Posts: 2,286
    ashers23281 said:
    I’ve just been up to remove all the strawberries and can see what the issue is. The straw around the strawberries was still wet from the rain we had.

    Maybe my set-up is wrong as I have strawberries growing through strawberry matting and looks like this may have prevented the straw from drying out.
    It's my first year with a serious strawberry bed, I opted to plant in ridges with weed suppressing membrane, the rain went in the troughs, the strawberries were sat high and dry on the membrane at the top of the ridges.
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