Posted on 06/09/2014 10:23:55 AM PDT by Leaning Right
As a rookie gardener, I planted some strawberry bushes two years ago. I did not get any fruit that year, but I was told that was normal.
Last year I got fruit, but the strawberries were all no bigger than a thumbnail. What went wrong? Any advice would be appreciated.
Some varieties only grow small berries.
Yes, you should be sorry. Because I was going to use a Caine Mutiny theme to make a lame joke.
Can you post an image of those strawberry bushes? That may help.
Natural, organic strawberries are small. And the small ones do best on their own, without needing a lot of maintenance.
The large ones are hybrid. And they may look impressive, but they don’t taste as good as the small, wild ones.
When the plants first start blossoming, make sure they're well-watered, do not give any more N and start giving them more phosphorus. If you compost, banana peels are excellent.Bone meal and rock phosphate are typical sources. If you can find them, fish bone meal and soy husks are other good sources. Everything is better if you compost it first.
Meats, poultry, eggs and dairy products are also phosphorus-rich (when cleaning out your fridge!), but you'd want to avoid these because they'll attract possums, rats, flies, maggots. You can, however, compost them successfully if you use an anaerobic bokashi composting method.
I think they are called RINOs.
If you actually see that you have many birds eating your berries, then netting may ultimately be the solution, as you prolly can’t shoot them all. Strawberries can be picky about their growing environment, some varieties more than others. IF you are doing pretty much everything right (not overwatering, but enough water, not pumping the nitrogen so high that the plant grows great but no berries, and you don’t have Verticillium fungus) then perhaps try scratching in some bone meal, applying a layer of compost, and covering the ground with mulch.
Then there is this article: 10 Reasons Strawberry Plants Don’t Produce Strawberries
http://strawberryplants.org/2010/08/strawberry-plants-producing-runners-but-no-strawberries/
Strawberry BUSH?. A few minutes with Google and I find this.
“WARNING
The fruits, though beautiful to look at, are reported to be poisonous if ingested.”
“Strawberry bush–Euonymous americanus. Naturalist refer to the plant as “ice cream” for deer. But it is poisonous to humans. It’s in the bittersweet family.”
Common Name(s):Burning bush, strawberry bush, hearts-a-bustin’, spindle tree, wahoo.
I have had and a neighbor has burning bushes. I had never heard them referred to as “Strawberry Bushes”. This is a misnomer. It does not produce strawberries. It produces red berries that may “look” like strawberries, but they are poisonous.
Burning bushes are a waste of time in my opinion. When planted as a hedge, they may not all turn red at the same time. Once reaching peak red, the leaves, very shortly, all fall off.
Forsythia and Honeysuckle bushes are best. The are the first bushes to leave and blossom. They are hearty and are the last to succumb to the frost.
Forsythia have beautiful, plentiful, yellow flowers while Honeysuckle have a beautiful fragrance that fills the air.
I know they are fairly common, but they give you a long season and are almost impossible to kill. As a hedge, they make a terrific privacy fence. They replace themselves by rooting their branches and can grow quite large if not pruned. You will need a big yard.
1) Most if not all strawberries are tendril crawlers not bushes.
2) We keep netting over ours with most in a fenced areas due to: birds, squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, skunks, racoons, deer, oppossum and the occasional neighborhood pets with a sweet tooth.
3) Our soil has a lot of clay, but we added some topsoil/manure to the garden and have had no issues since.
4) Put in our plants about 5 years ago. First year not much, but every year thereafter fruit has been bigger.
5) Remember I said they were crawlers - we have more plants now then we know what to do with they will self propogate.
When I was a about 60 years ago we used to pick wild strawberries from a field behind the military dependents’ housing complex. They were always very small, but very sweet.
Maybe you’ve got that variety.
When I was a kid, that is...
I thought the same thing. Strawberries grow on vines.
I used to use netting till I found a dead bird caught it in. I did use those white floating covers which covered the vole activity.
Now, when I trim my pine trees, I place the branches over the berries. When the needles fall off, I remove the dead branches. This seems to have improved my strawberry quantity and makes it easier to weed. I also cover them with mulch during the winter.
I grow three varieties of strawberries. Size never was a concern. The smaller they are the sweeter they are. If I wanted big strawberries, I'd go to the store.
I’ve found the size of my strawberries depends on the amount of water they get. For birds, use a net or get some cats.
No silly, strawberries don’t grow on vines, you’re thinking about dingleberries!
Cut off the runners. The more runners a strawberry plant sends out, the more energy it uses to produce new plants. This is energy it would be using to produce larger strawberries. If you are not trying to produce organic strawberries you could try adding a little 5-10-5 to the soil around the strawberry plants in the spring.
I have everbearing strawberries, and I live in roughly the same region as you Pen Argyl PA. I planted mine last year and got strawberries without any problem.
As for netting, you might want to use some, but not for the birds. Rabbits are your biggest problem. They love strawberries.
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