The only place we didn't bother with them was during the time we were renting before buying the smallholding and then the year in Ipswich.
When we had 3 children at home in the early smallholding years we had 4 beds of plants. All started in successive years and after their 4th year the bed would be cleared. Then as the kids left home we gradually got down to just a couple of beds. Most of the time we had plants that I'd propagated by pegging the runners into pots and then every few years I'd buy some new plants from the seed catalogues. Strawberry plants like seed potatoes have to be from certified producers to avoid the import of diseases, although you often see them for sale at car boot sales but I wouldn't buy them there.
To avoid weeds and to keep the fruit clean I've tried them grown through holes cut in plastic or used straw, now with just a small bed I don't bother with anything.It's easy just to wipe any fruit that get a bit dirty. Wet straw is also wonderful for harbouring slugs!
The Strawberry Fairy in the Flower Fairy books is the wild strawberry, something I've only ever seen once when we were on holiday somewhere in the country where the weather is wetter than Suffolk.
I tried to grow them from seed once but with no luck.
The plants I got in the 'Bargain Fruit Offer' were squashed into two planters and stood inside the cold frame. They gave me a few strawberries a week or two earlier than the outside bed. Now they are producing runners so I lifted one planter out to make room for pegging a few runners into pots ready to transplant somewhere later. Somewhere being the important word here as I have no idea where I'm going to put all the plants!
There's only room for a few in the Strawberry bed to make up for some lost in last summer's drought.
I had a look in my Plant Folklore book but nothing at all about strawberries. Although in my book of quotations I found this attributed to Queen Elizabeth 1st by Francis Bacon from the C16
Like strawberry wives, that laid two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones.
This made me smile as on the few occasions we had enough strawberries to sell that's exactly what I did!
Back Tomorrow
Sue
I dearly love how generous strawberries are, sharing their young so prolifically. I'm nowhere near as organised as you and I forget which have not fruited so well so probably have some very old plants in the bed. They are a beautiful fruit though, aren't they?
ReplyDeletexx
It was back at the smallholding that we needed to know how long things had been in various beds so I always drew a plan each year. I've decided all the plants that grow from runners will fill gaps and all the plants that are in the planters will get transplanted into bigger pots - a plan!
DeleteMy Mum had green fingers and always grew strawberries when I was a young girl. I remember there was a large bed of them at the side of the house and we could go out and pick them as we wanted. I don't remember there ever being a bowl of strawberries in the house, nor of my Mum ever doing anything with them. They were delicious!
ReplyDeleteThe only fruit we had growing when I was little were loganberries and no one pruned them so it was a big tangle. We just ate them as they were picked. My Mum didn't do gardening she was too busy ironing and dusting!
DeleteMy strawberries have never been very happy here. I am down to a few in pots grown from last year's runners and I had a crop of just ONE strawberry this year! Blackcurrants, raspberries etc do well though. The wild strawberries grow along the lanes here - when mum was alive and walking her little dog Trixie, I always knew which route she had walked as all the wild strawberries would have been picked! I think that every time I walk up our hill in the summer months . . .
ReplyDeleteHow lovely to have the tiny wild strawberries. I suppose Suffolk is too dry
DeleteI have a framed picture of the dead nettle fairy!
ReplyDeleteSon got a picture of the Willow Fairy for granddaughter Willow
DeleteI am going to try eating strawberries again, for a few years a use to have an upset tummy because of strawberries and I did love them. I loved the poem of the strawberry and the picture.
ReplyDeleteHazel c uk
I thought that I had that problem for a while but it was all the picking them giving me back-ache that felt like stomach ache!
DeleteI'm surprised you don't have any wild or 'alpine' strawberries as they are a weed here! The fruits are very small and sweet but if you don't keep an eye on the plants, they can overrun a whole flower bed in no time. It was the same in my previous garden. Something to do with clay soil maybe?
ReplyDeleteOr maybe it's too dry in Suffolk, certainly never seen any anywhere around in all the places I've lived in Suffolk
DeleteWe frequently get comments about why go to the bother of growing this or that when fruit and vegetables are for the most part relatively cheap to buy. Of course there are lots of reasons for ‘going to the bother’. But strawberries standout for one big reason: the taste is so superior to supermarket strawberries. This can be said about other F&V but strawberries illustrate this more than others.
ReplyDeleteAnd raspberries are so expensive to buy - a good reason for growing them as well as strawberries.
DeleteEnjoy yours! Mine are at an impasse and haven't done anything significant, I think due to the odd weather.
ReplyDeleteThe rain has helped a lot - a good crop, much better than I thought they would be
DeleteFresh strawberries are heavenly! I have many plants, to point of being overgrown, but I also have grass and bindweed growing throughout, so this year after harvest, I will be digging out, saving a few, and really clearing out the bed. I still have jam from last year, so I probably don't need nearly as many plants anymore. -Jenn
ReplyDeleteI love strawberry jam, have to make some to enter in a produce show this year
DeleteI don't know that I have ever known such a good year for strawberries as this year Sue. I have two or three lots every week - Scottish srawberries - and they have been, without exception luscious and sweet.
ReplyDeleteTiny unripe strawberries appearing here. I can hardly wait for them to ripen. You look to be getting a pretty good crop.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.