Q.
My Ozark Beauty and Ogallala strawberry plants produced a few berries when
first planted and now they want to propagate. This growth is filling my raised
bed to my satisfaction. I clip them down, water and watch them
grow! Please provide your most welcome and appreciated advice.
A.
You will want to give each individual plant its own space to grow. Space plants
no closer than 1 foot apart and remove all of runners as you see them.
You can plant them further apart and
propagate your own plants from the runners but you still want them no closer
than 1 foot apart. All the rest of the runners you want to remove from the
plants or they will get overcrowded, shade themselves, give you very low
production and make it difficult to harvest.
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| Strawberries growing in Las Vegas in amended desert soil demonstrating good color and good health |
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| Strawberries growing in Las Vegas soil amended with compost but showing the beginnings of iron chlorosis |
The plants that you decide to keep and
spaced far enough apart will last you about three years. These are the mother
plants. So at the beginning of the third year begin to propagate new plants
from the runners of the mother plant with the idea that these new plants will
replace the mother plants at the end of the third year.
You can keep these new plants in place
by just pegging or securing the new plants in a spot by holding down the runner
and baby plant in its new location. When new roots begin to form you can cut it
from the mother plant at cool times of the year such as March or September.
You can move them in the fall when they
are young if they are not in the right place.
There
are three types of strawberries classified on the time of year they produce.
Main crop strawberries produce a single crop of fruit and then turn their
energies to the production of runners, roots and leaves.
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| Strawberries with damage from the vine weevil |
In my opinion you run the highest risk
of not producing fruit by using main crop strawberries in our climate.
Everbearing strawberries like Ogallala and Ozark Beauty are supposed to produce
all during the spring, summer and fall months but usually tend to produce their
fruit mostly in the spring with a trickle the rest of the year.
Then there are the day neutral varieties
like Tri-Star which are supposed to produce more consistently all through the
year but usually end up producing in the spring and fall when it is cooler. So
expect to see fruit most likely in the spring months and some in the fall
months. The rest of the time expect to see runners and leaves.
Like most vegetables and fruit trees
they need at least six hours of sunlight every day. They prefer morning and
early afternoon sun. They like soils with lots of compost added to it. They
like to be mulched with straw or pine shavings such as animal bedding or even
shredded newspaper.
Generally speaking strawberries stop
producing fruit when temperatures are hot (85 to 90° F) so main crop
strawberries, kind of like tomatoes, are hit and miss in our climate. We are
better off with everbearing or day neutral types which you have.
However, yours are older varieties, very
hardy with well-established names but there are better varieties out there. We
are very limited here in what is available for home gardens so nurseries
usually stay with varieties with names that are recognized. Some people plant
all three types to improve their chances of getting some fruit.
Avoid fertilizing plants with nitrogen
fertilizers in the early spring. Wait for them to finish producing fruit in the
early summer and then fertilize them if they need it. You can tell if they need
it by looking at the leaf color and size.
Fertilizing them at the beginning of
summer you will be pushing new growth at a time when they normally don't
produce any fruit.
The biggest problems with strawberries
is iron chlorosis or yellowing leaves, keeping the soil to moist and developing
root rot, Strawberry weevils, snails, slugs, pillbugs or sow bug damage to the fruits.
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