Strawberries in Square Foot Gardens
Comments (35)
magnolias4ever
18 years agoRelated Discussions
HELP! Are my strawberry plants doomed??
Comments (12)I think you have plenty of time to get the bed ready if you are willing to do some work and also carefully monitor after planting. If I was in your situation I would turn the soil and sod over with a shovel. I'd dig deeply trying to make sure most of the sod ends up buried. One way to do this is to dig a trench the width of the bed and place the soil to the side, making the trench at least 18 inches deep. Then you can turn the soil next to the trench over into the trench, making sure the sod on top ends up upside down in the bottom of the trench, and the soil from the below the sod ends up on top. This will, in effect, move the trench about a foot or so farther into the garden. It has to be done shovelful by shovelful and requires some work, but if you slice off managable sized vertical slices of sod and soil it isn't backbreaking. You can use the shovel and your weight to cut a slice of sod and soil off the edge of the trench, then flip it into the trench. You keep going this way, turning the soil into the trench, burying the sod, and moving the trench along through the bed, leaving behind freshly turned soil. Finally, you can take the original soil removed from the trench and use it to fill the trench, which will have mirated ot the far end of the bed. This is also an opportunity to incorporate organic material into the soil, which impproves any soil. I would normally recommend that you add 6 inches of organic matter such as compost on top of the sod before you turn the bed over, but in this case, since strawberryes are hard to remove weeds from, your first priority should be to make sure that all the sod gets buried. The presence of the compost (or manure, or leaf mold, or peat moss, etc.) can make it a little harder to see the sod, but if you think you are up to it, the organic matter will really help. Once the bed is turned over and you have picked out any bits of green grass you see sticking through, place a mulch over the entire surface. I like organic mulches like leaves, grass clippings, etc., but many people use black plastic or landscape cloth. In any case, you want a thick mulch that will prevent any weeds or grass from growing through. wait a few weeks to allow the grass below to die, and plant your strawberries. Monitor very carefully all summer to make sure no grass is permitted go grow between the strawberries. I would not recommend using a rototiller for this. A rototiller will mix the grass with the soil, leaving a lot of the grass on the soil surface where it will try to regrow. Also, I don't like tillers in general because they don't get deep enough an often leave a hardened layer just below the tilled soils, caused by the tines hitting the soil below. If you have the ability, nothing can beat tilling with a shovel (although it is a lot slower)....See MoreFirst square foot garden... 2 squares left
Comments (2)Personally, I'd plant more spinach in one. The other, I'd try for something else leafy - even better if the roots are edible too! Nasturtium is fun, especially for a 2 yr old since you can eat the leaves and the flowers :) We can't get enough Chard in my house! Good luck and hope to hear that it goes so well you become addicted!...See MoreSquare Foot Strawberries
Comments (5)I have no patience. I went ahead and built my strawberry fountain over the weekend. Oooh it is beautiful. DH was working on earning some hubby points so he assisted with construction. It turned out so great that he is off to purchase more pots for two more! I'll post pictures if anyone is interested. After doing much research (googling) I decided the 1/foot spacing was to give the plants room to spread. There are many, many designs for strawberry towers - a lot of them very pricey - none of them quite like what mine turned out to be. All totalled it was $50 (not counting some repurposed rebar we used to stabilize it). It is approximately 5 feet tall to the top of the pots and holds 40 strawberry plants....See MorePerennials in the Square Foot Garden
Comments (9)This is my first year with them, as well. From everything I've read, it is popular among COMMERCIAL growers to turn them under every year and replant. Here in the homeowner's group, it seems that people see a reduction in production (hey, that's funny) in the third year, and decide to replant at that time. Given these two considerations, I decided to dedicate enough space (planted 6-8" apart, but not as close as 4 per square foot as some do) for them this year (I got 25 as well), and will clip off runners, but allow 1 runner from each plant to root itself so I can plant another 25 in the fall. Reason I'm doing this is that logically, this will give me 25 plants that are a year old next season, and the original plants which are 2 years old by next season. Next year, I'll (A) take out the 2 year old plants in the fall (the ones I'm starting with this year), and (B) allow 25 new runners from the 2009 runners (which are now plants which I'll plant Fall of 2009) (following all this?) That way, I will have 50 plants each year after this year, and I will never have a section of 25 which is older than 2 years (to avoid the 3rd year decline in production). So to summarize my plan: 2009: Plant original 25 2009: Allow 25 more runners. Fall 2009: Plant new rooted runners. Now I have a bed of 50 plants. 2010: Original plants will be 2 years old, and stay til production is over. 2010: Year-1-Runners (fall-planted runners) will now be 1 year old, and will be allowed to produce 25 NEW runners. Fall 2010: NEW runners will replace Original 25 plants, which will be ripped out. Make sense?...See Morefuzzy
16 years agosnibb
16 years agopreciousamy
16 years agosnibb
16 years agosnibb
16 years agoalan8
16 years ago
disneynut1977 ~ Melissa
16 years agosnibb
16 years agograssman84
15 years agomike_in_paradise
15 years agoInteresting....
Right now I have hundreds and hundreds (Maybe a thousand) of runners coming off my strawberry patch rooting all over the place. I took 50 of them yesterday and that did not even make a dent in them.
{{gwi:106590}}
I put in a box yesterday but I did not plant that many plants.
this box is 4 x 8 = 32 sq ft x 4 = 128 plants. I put in about 50 plants.
Now I will have to rethink this.
I have this other area that I have slowly been reclaiming from the swamp but it is still pretty wet.
{{gwi:84391}}
I have some wood for boxes that I got from a neighbour and I have been debating on trying to get some boxes in here and filling them with berries but that will be lots of work and not sure if I can get it done.
mike_in_paradise
15 years agomedontdo
15 years agomike_in_paradise
15 years agoI wait until the runners have roots well established and then pull them up and put them where I want them.
That was how I rebuilt the strawberry patch after the flood last year destroyed part of it.
grassman84
15 years agoanniesgranny
15 years agomedontdo
15 years agomike_in_paradise
15 years agocrystabel
15 years agoanniesgranny
15 years agograssman84
15 years agoanniesgranny
15 years agograssman84
15 years agoholly-2006
15 years agoanniesgranny
15 years agomedontdo
15 years agomike_in_paradise
15 years agoI put in 5 rows of strawberries. I picked the flowers on 2 rows and left 3 rows as is.
I noticed absolutely no difference in the results of the rows of picking versus not.
I put in another 72 plants in another box 3 x 8. Next 2 years will be interesting as I started my patch with 125 plants and now have that many in a 4x8 and a 3 x 12 sq ft box.
I really need to spend 1/2 day in the old patch cleaning it out.
anniesgranny
15 years agomike_in_paradise
15 years agoGranny: I am one of those people who likes to make his own mistakes when it comes to seeing what works and what doesn't.
Off topic to this thread but I did a bunch of different corn experiments.
The best is definitely corn covered in clear plastic in a raised box, with beans planted in between them (till the wind blows it down!), followed by my corn in the ground in dark plastic using a treated seed.
I tried a couple of different varieties with treated and untreated. I had also ignored this section but my better half weeded it a few days before this picture.
You can see big sections where the corn did not make it all!
mike_in_paradise
15 years agoToday we cleaned out the rows in the strawberry patch.
{{gwi:1261079}}
We took out another 150 plants and put in these two 3 ft wide rows using 8 inch spacing.
I am using more the sq ft type methods for spacing going wide and dense as the original planting was single rows spaced 12 inches as shown here.
This was June of 2007.
{{gwi:1261081}}
I may be pushing fate as this was the area that flooded last year but I am going to put a break wall of 12 inches in front of them as the water naturally turned here and headed to the pond in the flood.
Originally I screened all the soil for the mounds but after the flood these are just quick and dirty rows in case I lose them :) Just tilled in some peat moss. In the spring I will put on some composite.
That is over 300 plants that I pulled out of about 1 aisle between the original rows. The other rows I just whipper snipped up them and then ran the till and raked out the berries.
We pulled out tons of runners but still needs another afternoons work.
It will be interesting to compare these to the other plants that I have in raised boxes in another garden.
grassman84
15 years agomike_in_paradise
15 years agoGrassman: You should be fine with this and if like me will be looking for spots to plant the babies!
In the 4x8 box there are 50 plants and in the 3 x 12 plants there are about 75 plants.
urbanegardener
14 years agohotchaiguy
13 years ago
immrlizard