The name of our newsletter is Gourmet Berry News. Yesterday we purchased that domain (www.gourmetberrynews.com). This site will handle new subscriptions, unsubscriptions an will archive current and future newsletters. Visit to catchup on our news and to subscribe.
Why Do They Say Strawberries Live for 3 Years?
I received a question from someone who is growing strawberries for the first time. He has heard that strawberries live for three years and wanted to know if it was because of weeds, nutrients, or what. Here’s my reply:
Strawberry plants can live many years. All of the things you mention can be discouraging. In my experience weeds tend to take over before other factors become important. With good mulching and planning weeds can become less of a factor.
The three year thing is about the need to renovate the plants after a period of time. Organic matter breaks down and is depleted over a couple of years.
The soil structure is no longer able to hold moisture. The mass of roots of older plants quickly takes of water and the soil can’t hold enough water to provide the moist soil that strawberries need. Nutrients get depleted and are hard or impossible to incorporate. Most nutrient application is done as top dressing which is a very inefficient way of getting nutrients to the roots.
With alpines, I have found an additional reason to renovate after a period of time. Unpicked fruit results in volunteers. Self pollinated fruit (pollen from the same plant) and cross pollination of different varieties can result in what appears to be new types of plants coming up and producing fruit.
This is particularly apparent in plantings of white/yellow fruiting varieties. White/yellow fruit is recessive. A lot of crosses will result in the new generation producing red fruit. Non runnering types (clumping alpines for example) can produce volunteers that produce runners. As you can see this can get messy over time without some supervision and prethought.
Renovation
Other posts have touched on the subject of renovation. I have found through the years that renovation is more an art than a science. So many things have to be considered. Not just the methods, but the extent to which the plants will be trimmed back. Another key decision point is the health of the plants, the season, the environmental conditions, and plans for future crops.
I’m not going to go into all that right now. Suffice it to say that I recommend that one or a few plants are renovated at a time. You don’t want to take a chance with all your plants.
I’ll start this discussion with a reply to an email today from a customer who is having great success with their plants. They are growing in the garden in raised beds and in containers. They asked about cutting the plants back. Here’s the reply sent to them:
“Yes, the plants can be cut back to clean them up. Timing is critical and it is important to cut them back as little as possible. Once they have produced a crop they are messy because of spent bloom stalks and dead and dying leaves. The best and least risky way to clean them up is by hand by cutting out the bloom stalks and dead leaves. The next way would be to take a hedge clipper and trim them back, always leaving as much foliage as possible. The least desirable and not recommended way is to mow them down with a mower. Many will die as a result of this method.
The hardest thing to do after renovation is irrigation. The tendency is to overwater these plants to compensate for the trimming. Now that they have less foliage they will need less water, not more. Regularly overwatering leads to root rots. Some blame the trimming for the loss of the plants when in actuality it’s the irrigation.”
I’ll continue this discussion as time allows.