How to start your own strawberry patch

Strawberries are a quintessential summer fruit and they are quite easy to grow. By choosing the right variety for your area and following just a few planting tips, you can enjoy a bountiful, sweet harvest.

• Strawberries come in two main types: June-bearing and day-neutral. June-bearing varieties are the traditional berries that ripen all at once during the month of June, when there are the most available hours of daylight.
• Day-neutral varieties ripen continuously over the course of the summer, offering smaller but repeated harvests from June until frost.
• Choosing between these depends on what you will use the strawberries for. If you like to make jams and preserves, June-bearing varieties will ensure that you have a great big harvest to use all at once.
• For fresh eating, day neutral varieties will provide fruit throughout the summer without overwhelming you.

In Canada, it's important for gardeners to choose cold-hardy varieties as well. Earliglow, Catskill, and Northeaster are strong June bearers, while Seascape and Tribute are hardy day neutral choices.

1) Strawberries require at least six hours of sunlight per day and prefer well-drained soil. They are shallow-rooted, so soil need only be dug and amended with compost to a depth of 20 centimetres. A top dressing of compost will serve as a nutrient-rich mulch to keep roots cool while plants become established.

2) Plant strawberries on a cloudy, spring day to reduce transplant shock. Set plants out 50 centimetres apart in rows one metre apart. Though this seems spacious now, strawberries will send runner into the empty patches, and each runner will produce a new plant (and more strawberries) in future seasons.

3) When planting, be sure to set the crown of the plant at the right height. A bit of the paper wrapper at the top of the roots should be above the surface, but none of the roots themselves should be exposed. Water well and mulch with compost.

1) For the first bloom, it is necessary to pinch off the small white blossoms to allow the plant to develop a strong root system before setting fruit. For June bearers, this means pinching off all blossoms the first year. For day neutral varieties, pinch off all blossoms until July 10; after that, allow blooms to be pollinated and grow into berries.

2) To pick strawberries, wait until they are perfectly red all over, with no white or pink spots on the underside. Hold the stem with one hand while pulling the strawberry with the other to avoid pulling the whole plant out of the ground.

3) After a hard frost, mulch strawberry patch with a 15 to 20 centimetre layer of straw. If you live in a windy area, consider pinning it down with a sheet of bird netting held around the perimeter with garden stakes. The netting can be reused in the spring to protect your fresh strawberries from greedy birds.