Growing Guide: Strawberries

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Strawberry Description:

Strawberries are one of summer’s most delicious delights. The juicy red berries are infinitely better from the garden than from the grocery store, and they’re surprisingly easy to grow. Strawberries are a perennial crop, meaning that you can leave the plants in the ground or growing container over the winter and they’ll come back the next spring. Most strawberry plants won’t put forth an impressive crop the first year, but the next season will bring more fruit.

Interestingly, strawberries aren’t botanically classified as berries because their flowers contain more than one ovary. The fleshy strawberries that we eat are actually accessory fruits. Those little yellow bits on the outside that are usually referred to as seeds are the actual fruits containing the even tinier seeds. For the purposes of this growing guide, though, we’ll still refer to them as berries.

What is the best container for growing strawberries?

Strawberries don’t have very deep roots, but they do like to stretch out horizontally. Given the chance, most types of strawberry plants will send out runners that are 18-24 inches long. Get a container large enough to allow around 18 inches between plants.

There are special strawberry pots or towers that have small pockets arranged all around the outside to grow several strawberry plants at once. While your plants will thrive in those specialty containers, you don’t need to splash out on a specific type of pot. Strawberries are happy in barrels, buckets, troughs, grow bags, and pretty much anywhere else with will-draining soil and at least six to eight hours of sun every day.

Your best bet is a wide container that has a bit of space at the top for a layer of straw around the plants – four to six inches deep is enough.

How do you germinate strawberry seeds?

If you want to enjoy these juicy gems, you’ll have to be patient – the seeds can take around two to four weeks to sprout. Find a shallow container with drainage holes and fill it with a seed-starting medium, then sprinkle the tiny seeds over the surface. 

Cover them with a very thin layer of seed-starting medium; the seeds won’t germinate if the light can’t reach them. Using a grow light is the best way to ensure the seeds get the light they need during germination.

Mist the seeds immediately and then daily. Be careful not to disturb the seeds and keep the seed-starting medium moist at all times. 

One important note: if you’re germinating seeds that were harvested directly from strawberries and not purchased in a store, you’ll have to stratify them first. Check out our article on strawberry seed stratification for instructions.

When should you plant strawberry seeds?

Start your strawberry seeds indoors about eight weeks before the last frost of the spring. After the seedlings reach about three inches tall, start hardening them off by introducing them to the climate outside. Set the seed-starting tray outside for two hours the first day and then bring it in. Continue taking it outside every day, increasing the time by one hour each day. This process allows the seedlings to develop their strength against the wind and other conditions outdoors.

After a week, the seedlings are ready to go into their new home. Plant them only up to the crown – the place right above the roots where the stems emerge. Burying the crown can cause the plant to rot.

Strawberry care guide:

A light layer of straw on the soil will help protect the plants’ roots from the summer heat and keep the berries clean and off of the soil. A single layer is enough; be sure not to cover any part of the plants themselves.

Strawberries are truly a sun-worshiping plant; the more sun they get, the more fruit they’ll produce. However, it’s essential to keep the soil from drying out to avoid stunted growth and misshapen fruit. During the hottest days of the summer, while the plants are producing flowers and fruit, their water needs will increase – but overwatering can also cause problems. Before watering, poke your finger down about an inch into the soil; if it’s dry, give the plants a good drink. If the soil is still wet, check back the next day.

Ground-level irrigation is the best way to keep strawberry plants watered. Use a drip hose or soaker hose rather than a top-down spray to keep the leaves dry and reduce the risk of fungal infections. If you don’t have either of those, use a watering can to water the soil at the base of the plants, being careful not to soak the leaves.

Because of their eye-catching color and irresistible sweetness, strawberries are a sought-after treat for birds and other garden critters. Protect your strawberry plants with bird netting draped over some landscaping hoops. 

The plants will start sending runners, or baby plants on stalks, out over the soil. Snip these off and discard them (or plant them elsewhere) to encourage the plants to put their energy into producing fruit.

Harvesting and storing strawberries:

It’s easy to tell when a strawberry is ready to be picked: it matures into a vibrant red color and feels firm to the touch. Wait to pick them until there are no green or white spots remaining, but don’t leave them so long that they begin to lose their shiny luster and get soft or wrinkly.

Harvest strawberries in the early morning when the weather is cool. They’re best eaten immediately (after washing, of course). There’s really nothing better than popping sweet, just-picked strawberries into your mouth on a sunny summer day.

If you must wait to use them, put the unwashed berries in a covered container in the fridge, where they’ll last two or three days before they start to shrivel. Wash them just before using. If you have too many strawberries to use before they go bad, they freeze and dehydrate exceptionally well.

Harvesting strawberry seeds:

The easiest and most common way to propagate strawberries is to pin one or more of the runners (the stalks that shoot out from the main plant) to the soil and wait for it to take root. However, there are times when storing seeds is the better way to go.

Save some of the fruits from your best-producing plants for harvesting seeds. Since the seeds are so tiny and firmly attached to the strawberry’s flesh, gathering them isn’t exactly straightforward. We tried three different methods to gather strawberry seeds to determine which one was the easiest: picking them off of fresh berries with a toothpick, drying out thin slices and scraping the seeds off, and putting the berries in a blender (yes, really).

1. Picking the seeds off of the fleshy berries individually takes forever and is endlessly frustrating. It’s possible, but chances are you’ll get tired of it after the first berry. Put the seeds on a paper towel and set them out on a flat surface to dry for about a week.

2. Dehydrating the strawberries to make the seeds pop out more easily is simple, but takes a little patience. Cut thin strips off the very outside of the strawberries, leaving the seeds intact. Place the strips on a piece of parchment paper or a paper towel and stick them in a dry place with a bit of airflow. An indoor grow tent is ideal, but if you don’t want to wait for them to dry naturally, put the strips on a pan lined with parchment paper and put it in the oven on the lowest temperature setting. Bake for two hours, then turn the oven off but leave the pan inside. Let it sit overnight. When you pick up each dried strip, the seeds should be ready to pop off. Scrape them over a bowl with a toothpick or your fingernail, then empty them onto a paper towel and leave them out to dry.

3. Blending strawberries might sound crazy, but it’s a surprisingly effective way to gather seeds. The trick is to make sure there’s enough water to effectively liquefy the berries while leaving the seeds intact. Put a handful of berries into a blender with about a quart of water and blend on a medium setting for 10-15 seconds. Turn the blender off and let the contents sit for a minute or two until they settle. The pulp will rise to the top; spoon it out and discard it (or use it in a smoothie). The seeds will have settled on the bottom of the blender jar. Slowly start pouring out the water, being careful not to let the seeds out. (You can try to use a fine mesh sieve for this, but we found that even the finest of mesh still lets most of the seeds through.) When there’s just a small amount of liquid left, swirl it around to suspend the seeds, then quickly pour it out onto a few layers of paper towels. Fold the paper towels in half with the strawberries on the inside and carefully squeeze out most of the water. Open up the towel and scrape the seeds onto a dry paper towel, then set it out for a week to let the seeds dry completely. 

In our first-hand experience, we found the second method to be the easiest and most straightforward. But it also takes the longest amount of time and comes with the risk of attracting gnats, so you’ll have to decide for yourself how you’ll harvest your strawberry seeds.