I'm not in your area (I'm colder) so I can't give you advice on types to grow. However, I did just plant my strawberries in a raised bed early this spring. I read that I should take off all the blossoms in the first year but I didn't. They seemed to produce a few berries on each plant without any problems, enough to keep my son munching on them every day after school. It doesn't seem to have affected root development or anything else. I also had lots of runners to fill in the bed after the blossoms and berries stopped. It's a well established bed now for it's first winter.

That's just my limited experience. Hope it helps.

April:

One of the reasons you may be confused is that your desires and expectations for quick-bearing strawberry plants are inconsistent with reality. Whether you plant now, or in the spring, you will not have a significant harvest of strawberries in the 2008 season in zone 7. Strawberry plants just do not produce significant crops the first season after planting, and that will remain true no matter how badly you would like to speed up the process.

Most of us who plant bedded strawberries from bundled, bareroot plants do so in the spring, which is when these plants are sold. The first season is normally spent growing runners and strengthening the plants for production in the following season. Many people disbud their plants the first season, removing the blossoms to improve runner production. I don't think this is always necessary, but even if you permit the plants to blossom and fruit, production the first season will be very light.

If you have found a source of bareroot plants available now, you may gain a slight advantage by planting this fall, as the plants may begin to root over winter. But the advantage will not be enough to give you a real 2008 crop in a zone 7 climate.

Both Sweet Charlie and Earliglow are Junebearing strawberries that will, in a zone 7 climate, begin to fruit in late May, and will have about a 3-week fruiting window. As soon as summer temperatures become hot, Junebearers begin to decline in berry size and soon stop altogether. Everbearers will hold up better in heat, and provide an additional fall crop as temperatures cool a bit, but their production comes in dribs and drabs. Flavor any any strawberry grown in heat will be poor. Sweet Charlie is a berry particularly adapted to southern areas, such as Florida, where it can begin to produce in December through February, when temperatures are right.

So you can plant strawberries, whether they be bareroot, plugs, or plants, now or at any other time you can work the soil. Freezing temperatures do not bother established strawberry plants a bit, and they require no protection. When the second growing season arrives, if you have kept your bed weeded and the plants thinned to stand at least 6-8 inches apart, you should have a marvelous crop.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I can only speak from my experience so here goes.

I've planted strawberry, in the spring, summer and falls. No matter when I planted, I've always gotten better the following spring. I get enough to get sick of them and to keep friends and neighbors happy.

So based on my experience, I say plant away!!!

BTW, until yesterday, I was getting a few berries everyday for the last couple weeks on my everbearers. My only problem with them there berries are that they are a little to small (almost the size of a quarter) and tart for me.

Fall-planting makes sense in climates that are mild enough that the ground doesn't freeze. That way they get established before summer hits, which is a big deal in my dry-summer climate. But because many areas are colder than that, the growers mass-produce them for delivery in late winter or spring.

I get a significant first-year crop from day-neutral types. But I have a very long, cool growing season. I get a bigger crop the following year, because even day-neutrals make a heavier early summer crop. It amazes me that a plant as small as a strawberry can produce so much fruit compared to the size of the plant, and it's even fairly sweet.

Thanks all for the advice. Jellyman, I realize that what I want may not be possible but from what I've read online, growers using the annual hill method get large crops the first year. I was only hoping to do the same. Everyone does seem to agree that 2nd year crops are better so I will try to reign in my expectations a bit.

Hamiltongardener, I think I will leave blossoms on half the plants and remove them from others. This will allow me to compare results.

Crabjoe, Atash, did you remove blossoms the first year or leave them?

Also, do you guys mow plants down to the crowns after harvesting or save runners?

Thanks for your help!

April:

It is true that commercial growers, growing on hills with black plastic and drip irrigation/fertilization, can grow large crops the first season. In fact, most of the growers in southern areas treat strawberries as an annual crop and don't worry about runners at all. But to do this, in addition to the cultural practices mentioned above, they plant strawberry plugs, which already have blossom buds formed within the plants. To make this system work, the plants should grow continuously after planting, which is why it is used mainly in milder climates.

Georgia is a very long state, with substantial climate variation from north to south. I think you will find that commercial growers in Georgia are concentrated in the southern part of the state, where they can plant right through the winter and not have to worry about freezing out the developing buds. I don't know for sure that you could do this in your climate since I don't know where you are located, but if it is a normal zone 7 climate you first have to allow the plants to develop substantial flower buds, as well as runners if you are to have any real production. If you plant bundled bareroot plants now, there will be a few blossom buds imbedded in the plants, but not many. If you could find a source of plugs you might try planting them now, but I doubt the blossom buds would winter over well under conditions of real cold. But even if you lost a few blossom buds, plugs would improve your prospects of production next spring over bareroot plants.

I try to make sure that a substantial number of runners produced the first season are able to root, since this will greatly increase production the following season. After that, I renew the bed annually by removing the old plants with elongated crowns and replacing them with young, vigorous runners. In my case, since I grow on black plastic, I cut a slit for the runner crowns and put them in contact with the soil. But I don't leave all of them, since I don't want the patch to become too crowded which would reduce sunlight and air circulation around the plants. Once runners are rooted they can also be transplanted to other locations, including a new bed if that is desired.

Many people mow their leaves down after the berries have produced to remove older leaves that may carry diseases into the following season. Strawberry plants do not need leaves to see them through the winter, and most of them will die anyway. The important thing is the crowns, which contain all the leaves and blossom buds for the following spring.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Jellyman, I'm in zone 7b, about 40 miles from Atlanta. We occasionally get temps below freezing, but they rarely last for more than a day or two.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Its exactly the kind of information I was looking for.

I've never removed blossoms. In fact, the only thing I really do is water my plants.

With established beds, I rake out the bed in late fall then thin out the plants when they come out of winter dormancy.

I'd ask your nursery when those plants were dug. Some nurseries are trying to sell their leftover stock from last year, and I wouldn't touch those.

A lot of commerical growers in the southeast are using the plug plant system. Try looking for info from NC State...I know they've been working on that a lot lately.

Thanks for your help!

I really don't wish to confuse things but I live in northern West Virginia, essentially, PA line, and have had excellent success planting strawberry plugs in late summer (about mid-August) and picking a "normal" crop the following spring. I plant on plastic with irrigation, cover with row cover over winter, uncover early to mid-April, start adding water and fertilizer and they yield almost as much the first year as the second and later. The problem I have found with plugs is finding someone willing to sell what is a reasonable number for a home producer. Most want to sell in minimum lots of 1,000 which is 3-4 times what I can use. So you need to find a supplier willing to send you some "leftovers" at the end of his shipments or get together with severaral other home growers and share an order.

Billy:

Your experience is consistent with what I would expect from plug culture as I understand it. By planting in late summer your plugs have time to enter dormancy without damage to buds that will break the following spring.

You also put your finger on the problem with plugs: They are sold in large lots to commercial growers. Your strawberry patch is pretty big, but most backyard growers would not be able to use even one-fourth of a lot of 1,000 plugs.

But if you can use a large number, plugs seem to have significant advantages over traditional bareroot plants, certainly for the first season. Commercial growers apparently think so, since nearly all of them are now using plugs. For the backyard grower who wants 25-50 plants for a small patch, bareroot plants will work just as well though. It just takes a little more patience, since you don't get much of a crop the first season. And most backyard growers try to keep their strawberry patches going for 3 or even 4 years, if they can keep the weeds out.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA