Around mid-fall, October/November, we should begin to receive our bare root strawberry plants and it is at this time, that those who know, will begin to plant them out into their gardens. Plant your new strawberry crowns into your prepared garden bed as soon as you can, not giving them a chance to dry out or get sick between our store and your garden.  Strawberries like to be planted into a soil that is slightly acidic and not overly wet, just kept damp.  Prior to planting, I work two handfuls of finished compost, and one small handful of both landscape mix and worm castings with the soil that I am planting each strawberry into.  When planting strawberries, I cut off all but two inches of the roots, and then bury the crowns halfway, leaving the top, growing portion of the crown above ground.  Place the plants at least 8-12 inches apart and allow them to send out runners.  Once the plants are in the ground and have begun to send out new growth, mulch the soil around the plants with straw, a rough compost, leaves or grass clippings.  Just use something that will keep the soil evenly moist and protect the plants from drying out.   If planted in the fall, strawberries will produce edible fruits from March through early June, and then if they are protected from harsh summer conditions, primarily drying out, the plants will fruit again in the late fall.   The secondary fruiting in the fall will be enhanced if you peel back the mulch layer and apply a handful of cottonseed meal around each plant sometime in mid-summer. 

Strawberries are notoriously short-lived due to their tendency to build up diseases in themselves, and eventually succumb, and die out.   Despite this inevitability, it is possible to build up and maintain a perennial strawberry patch, it just takes a little work.  After the strawberry plants fruit, they will send out runners that will have a viable plant growing on the end of them.  If you take these new plants and fasten them to the ground by burying them under an inch or so of soil, they will establish and begin to bear fruit themselves the following spring.  Once your runners have taken root and are growing on their own, you can remove the older, mother plants.   If you follow this pattern, you’ll never have any plant more than two years old in the garden, and this will help prevent disease from wiping out your patch.

This year we are selling the following two varieties of bareroot strawberries:

Albion- A relatively new strawberry variety that was developed here in California with our specific climate requirements in mind. Albion has quickly become a favorite with home gardeners and is known for it’s fruits, which have a uniformly conical shape, bright red color, reliable firmness and a surprisingly sweet taste. Plants are high-yielding and everbearing, which means that they will flower and fruit continuously from late spring into early fall. This variety has been bred to be resistant to several common diseases including, verticillium wilt, phytophthora crown rot and anthracnose.

Chandler- This is a time tested favorite for coastal California, and is the “go to” variety for gardeners and farmers alike. Chandler will begin to flower in the late winter to early spring months and will produce an early crop of medium to large sized, deliciously sweet fruits. Typically, plants will produce one main flush of fruits and then usually a second, smaller crop again in the early fall. This variety is susceptible to root rot, and absolutely must have well drained soil and be planted properly.