Planting a Strawberry Patch

The Old Strawberry Patch

This past Sunday was the perfect fall day - sunny sky, a crisp breeze and stunning colors all around. I couldn't wait to go outside and do some much needed yard work. And as I was putting on my boots, thinking of all things that needed to get done, I realized that it had been a while since I'd made my way down to the prior owner's old garden, which is located toward the far end of our yard. So I took a slight detour from the morning's chores and had a look around. I wasn't surprised to find that the 20 sq ft cluster of mint, which had been cut down to the ground a few months ago, had grown back to half of its initial height of 4 ft. It will undoubtedly take a lot more effort on my part to get rid of this invasive plant.

I then made my way over to the right side of garden - home to a rather large and overgrown strawberry patch. As I knelt down for a closer inspection, to my surprise, I found a rouge strawberry. Then another. Parting a few leaves with my hands, I could see that most of runners produced over the years had rooted right through the worn black landscape fabric, which was put down when the garden was first dug. A light bulb then turned on in my head and I decided that what I really needed was new strawberry patch and that I would plant it NOW. The weekend's chores would just have to wait.

I was planning on purchasing new crowns for next year but realized then that I had a huge stock of my own right there in front of me. I gave one of the smaller and newer looking plants a slight pull and to my surprise, the roots came up through the landscape fabric clean and intact. For the next half hour, I would go on a hunting mission for some new runners and 1 year old crowns. It was like finding money.

After I was done, I took my loot back to the house and sorted through my find, cutting off all of the older leaves and separating the crowns into three separate piles - new runners, smaller 1 year old crowns and larger/older crowns.

After the plants were sorted and washed, I chose a large section of my side bed and went to work on amending the soil, adding loads of compost, some blood meal, greensand and rock phosphate. I placed the crowns about 6 inches apart (probably closer than I should have, but I'm expecting that some of them will not make it through the winter). After what felt like a good hour, I had planted over 50 strawberry crowns. I gave them all a long drink of water and covered my new patch with a layer of straw. Now it's just a matter of waiting to see whether or not this idea was just plain crazy.

I'm thinking that I may go on another hunting trip next weekend. I'm my opinion, one can never grow too many strawberries. I'm not sure of this particular variety, but having seen strawberries in June when we first visited the house and the few now, I'm guessing it's an "everbearing" variety that fruits twice a year. If anyone has any advice on how to best plant, overwinter and care for strawberry plants, please share!