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strawberries
estellemor
Posts: 1
in Fruit & veg
This year I planted strawberries on pots. Good quality potting compost. watered, fed, lots of green foliage but hardly any strawberries. what did I do wrong ?
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Posts
I think they prefer open ground. I have tried growing them in pots and its been a disaster. The ones on the allotment, drilled into hard and weed bestrewn soil, have produced wonderful crops.
My strawberries also failed this year, they are two year old plants in the garden they put out only a few leaves which started rotting, the fruit has been small and few compared to last year. I take new runners every three years to keep the plants fresh but this year it did not work
Me too. Very few flowers, hence a most disappointing crop. Planted last August from runners taken from my healthy stock, same as I have done for decades! Whatever can the reason be?
My strawberries also failed this year even in open ground
I had one strawberry but a slug ate it. I wondered if it was because I had sown some borage amongst the plants. The leaves are big and healthy.
An so sorry your strawberries failed.. I grow in big planters every year and I do propagate new plantlets from the runners that form after the final crop.
Open ground doesn't work for me as ground is at a premium in my small garden.. As they are in planters if they get a bit too much sun I can move then to a shadier spot for a while.. It works for me and I had a good few and even froze some to make jam at a later date...
A 2 yr old plant will yeild less the second year so pegging down runners is a good idea.. I also remove any crispy dead leaf debris as it encourage slug to hide.. I also watered well and used a tomato feed every3days.. Currently I am awaiting the second flush of berries..
Last edited: 20 July 2016 17:07:07
Same as BLT - mine are all in containers, and I rarely have a problem with them unless it's slugs or magpies eating them.
Did you get any flowers? If you didn't get any flowers you won't get fruit.
Variety you're growing can also be a factor.
Perhaps you've been overfeeding them early on and are getting foliage at the expense of flowers. I don't do anything particularly intense to mine in spring other than tidying up, as BLT says, and they get a general feed and a bit of new compost at the same time. Mine get tomato food too, once they have flowers, but that's only if I remember...
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Mine have failed too .
Got loads of flowers on them but the fruit didn't grow very well in fact they are tiny. Got decent ones last year but none so far this year . Weird