How to Grow Strawberries (And Get Fruit the First Year)

Strawberries are one of the few crops that give you fruit in a single season from a plant that costs about a dollar. They are also one of the easiest to quietly ruin — by planting the crown at the wrong height, or by letting a first-year plant fruit itself into exhaustion.

Which type to plant

This is the only decision that really changes the outcome, and it should follow what you want to do with the fruit.

If you want to fill a freezer, plant June-bearing. If you want a handful of berries most weeks through summer, plant day-neutral. Planting one when you wanted the other is the most common disappointment.

All three go in at the same point in the year, though — bare-root crowns as soon as the soil is workable, four to six weeks before your last frost, which is where the planting calendar puts them.

Getting the crown height right

This is the detail that decides whether the plant lives.

The crown is the thickened point where the roots meet the leaves. It must sit exactly level with the soil surface — not below it, not above it. Planted too deep, the crown rots within weeks; planted too high, the roots dry out and the plant never establishes.

Spread the roots out in the hole rather than bunching them, firm the soil, and water in.

Why you pinch the first year’s flowers

It is counterintuitive, and it is the advice most often ignored.

A first-year June-bearing plant that is allowed to fruit puts its energy into a small crop of berries instead of into roots and crown. Remove every flower in that first season and the plant builds the structure to carry a much heavier crop the following June — commonly around double.

On day-neutral and everbearing types, pinch flowers only until late June, then let them fruit for the rest of the season.

Through the season

Water an inch a week, more as the fruit swells, always at soil level. Strawberries are shallow rooted and dry out fast, but wet leaves invite botrytis — the grey mould that turns a ripening berry to fuzz overnight.

Mulch with straw as soon as fruit sets, tucking it under the developing berries. It keeps fruit off wet soil, stops mud splash, and suppresses weeds.

Net the bed before the fruit colours, not after. Birds find ripening strawberries the day before you plan to pick them.

Renovating and replacing

After the June crop finishes, renovate: shear the old leaves back to about 4 inches, thin crowded plants to roughly 6 inches apart, remove weeds, and top-dress with compost. The bed looks brutal for a fortnight and comes back stronger.

Yields fall off sharply after the third or fourth year as plants age and soil disease builds. Plan on starting a fresh bed on new ground every three years, using runners from your best plants — so the replacement costs nothing but the space.