How to Grow Strawberries: Top Three Tips for Southern Growers
Top Three Tips for Growing Strawberries in the South
Want to grow strawberries? Find out just how tasty your southern berries can be with these three important tips for getting your strawberry patch off to a great start!
The Southern Challenge
Strawberries are just about everybody’s favorite crop. Even folks who don’t find time to shop farmers markets any other time of the year, will pull of the road for a “Fresh Strawberries” sign. And with good reason! It is hard to find a tastier and more nutritious sign of spring than this wonderful little berry.
Despite the popularity of the fruit, however, many great gardeners hesitate to start a strawberry patch in their own backyard. Strawberries have very unique growing habits and needs, and some gardeners are not sure where to begin. Others have tried strawberries in the past, but after year or two lost the patch and are not sure why. After over a decade of keeping a large strawberry patch here in central Arkansas, I have come to appreciate both how valuable and how sometimes downright frustrating this little plant can be! Challenging to grow in any climate, strawberries are particularly difficult to grow in the south. Heat, drought, and weed pressure all challenge the naturally-grown strawberry patch. Yet, with patience and the right knowledge, strawberries CAN be grown in the south. In fact, I have come to consider them the most rewarding crop I have ever grown.
Strawberries are too big a topic for any single article, so I do recommend our Homesteader Guide to Growing Strawberries as a comprehensive resource for starting, maintaining, and profiting from a backyard strawberry patch. But in this little article, let me share three simple but powerful tools for making your southern strawberry patch thrive! Thanks for reading!
1. Use June-Bearing Varieties
June-Bearing strawberries put all their fruiting efforts into one short spurt of about 3 weeks in late spring, This allows the plant to produce its full crop before the main heat of summer. They are not dependent on a certain temperature window, as are Day-Neutral varieties. They produce the largest berries and, in my opinion, the most flavorful. June-Bearers produce a high yield of runner plants, which guarantees a continuous supply of new plants for bed renewal and plant sales. In the deep south, June-Bearers many have to be treated as annuals and replanted yearly, but they will still yield the most fruit in hot climates.
2. Plant in the Fall
Strawberries can be planted in the spring or fall. But if you want to save yourself a summer’s work, plant your June-Bearing strawberries in the fall! If planted in the spring, fruiting must be delayed in order to let the roots develop well. “Delayed fruiting” means picking off e-v-e-r-y blossom the first season. Since they put out blossoms for a couple of months, this gets really tedious. Plants that are allowed to set fruit immediately after planting will not yield as well the rest of their life. If you set June-Bearing plants out in the fall, however, they have all winter to develop their root system and will produce a good crop the following spring.
3. Set-up a Cooler Micro-climate.
Strawberries are native to cool climates. To help strawberries handle the heat, provide afternoon shade or use shade cloth during the summer. A smaller bed can be planted under the shade of a tree, especially in deep south or desert climates.
Use deep, light colored mulches to help keep the soil cooler. A deep fluffy later of straw will not only cool the soil but also retain moisture and suppress weeds. You almost can’t over-mulch strawberries, especially in the south.
Water deeply. Drip-tape buried under mulch works well. Put it on a timer if needed. Strawberries need consistent moisture through hot summers and autumns in order to set fruit for the following year. As with most crops, well-draining beds are important in any climate to prevent fungus and disease.
Best wishes on your gardening journey! Check out our Homesteader’s Guide to Growing Strawberries for more info on southern berries.
Want to sell your seed garlic with us?
If you are a seed garlic grower who is looking for a place to market your crop, we are looking for more growers!
We’ve shipped garlic all over America
We’d love to add you to our garlic growers map!