Posted by Janet Harriett on Jun.14, 2010

ⓒ iStockPhoto - Hatman12

Strawberries are a good place for a beginning fruit gardener to begin dabbling in permaculture fruit plantings. The plants are inexpensive, often available in packs of 25 for $10 or less, and produce runners prolifically to propagate more plants, giving a lot of plant for your buck. Strawberry plants are pretty, so you can plant them as an edging plant in a sunny ornamental bed before committing to tearing up part of the yard for a full fruit garden.

Strawberries can be june-bearing, day-neutral or everbearing. If you’re looking for a lot of berries at once, to freeze or make jam, go for the june-bearing. They get ripe over a short period of time and the fruit is generally considered tastier than the other types. For a home planting for snacking purposes or a few shortcakes for special summertime occasions, though, the day-neutral and everbearing varieties produce a more constant but smaller stream of berries over the entire summer.

Unlike many fruits, day-neutral or everbearing strawberries produce a crop the first year they’re planted, which is as close to instant gratification as fruit growing gets. With these, you’ll want to pinch off the blossoms from planting through the end of June or so, to let the plants put energy into developing a root system instead of topgrowth and berries. After June, though, you can let the plants start producing berries, which should give you fruit for August through to the first frost. June bearing strawberries produce their full course of blossoms early in the summer, so they’re naturally done fruiting before a grower should stop pinching blossoms the first season and don’t produce a crop until the second year.

Strawberries do take some care, much of which is directed toward keeping the spread of the runners and daughter plants under control. I just planted a variety that is billed as “Produces few runners,” and the gardener who shared the plants with me assures me that they will send runners into any patch of dirt they can find. Each autumn, strawberry plants need to have the old foliage carefully sheared off and removed from the patch, and the plants require some winter protection with a thick layer of light mulch in all but the mildest climates

Strawberry patches generally last about 3 years before the plants spend themselves out and need to be dug and replanted with fresh stock. This makes strawberries much less of a commitment than other small fruits or trees, some of which can last dependably for 40 years or more with good care.

A single strawberry plant will produce about a quart of berries the year after it is planted.  If you end up with more strawberries than you can eat fresh, remove the stems, wash, dry thoroughly and freeze. Quarter or slice strawberries before freezing them if you want to use them in smoothies.  You can also slice strawberries 3/8 inch thick and dehydrate the to make strawberry chips for snacking or adding to cooked or cold cereal.

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Posted under Home Environment, Organic Garden.