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Wondering how to grow big strawberries? Here’s the trick you need to know to grow fresh jumbo strawberries!
If you love the taste of fresh berries but don’t want to pay the high prices at the grocery store, why not start your own strawberry bed in the backyard?
You can easily grow them in your home garden or even as a border alongside your patio. You can also grow huge strawberries in containers!
Strawberries are quite easy to grow but to keep your bed going year after year, some maintenance needs to be done. And we’ve figured out how to grow huge strawberries every year!
How to Grow Huge Strawberries
We have learned that it’s much easier to keep track of your new and older strawberry plants if you have two (or more) separate beds of plants.
We actually have four separate raised beds, but you can just have two separated areas to keep track of which plants are older. You could also grow them in a vertical planter, like this one.
It doesn’t matter whether you are growing strawberries in pots, containers, raised beds or directly in the garden. The basic care is the same.
Do whatever works for you so you can easily tell which are the oldest plants.
And you ARE going to want to know which plants are oldest, if you want the biggest juiciest strawberries there are.
What Type of Strawberry to Grow?
There are two types of strawberries:
June-bearing strawberries
The June bearing variety of strawberry plants start bearing fruit around the middle of June, here at least. They will keep bearing fruit for about four weeks.
Everbearing strawberries
Everbearing strawberries will also be ready for picking in early Spring, around mid June. However, instead of bearing one big harvest over the next month, these berries will keep growing and bearing fruit all summer long, sometimes even into the Fall months!
Our berry plants are the everbearing variety; the following information applies no matter which strawberry variety you choose to plant. Both the everbearing and the june-bearers will produce a great yield of berries.
How to Plant Strawberries
Strawberries love to grow in full sun, but they will also grow in spots where there is less sunlight. The first thing is to figure out where your strawberry patch will be sited.
Get your strawberry plants in the ground; when you dig the hole add some compost before planting. Using a garden trowel instead of a shovel works better. And, when you plant, make sure you do so at the right height.
If you plant too deep, your strawberry plant will suffer and not grow well.
If you plant too shallow, the roots can become exposed to the air and will likely die.
This plant is set perfectly, it’s not too deep so that the crown is buried. It’s not so shallow that the roots can become exposed.
Planting depth is crucial to having your strawberry plants survive!
Now just keep the plant watered regularly and it will grow. You can use drip irrigation or you can use a garden sprinkler. We water our plants every morning, so moisture is maintained in the strawberry patch.
After the plants have settled in, you will find them starting to grow runners. You will be able to tell a runner because the mother plant sends out a long stem and starts new roots and leaves.
This Part is Key to Grow Huge Strawberries
If you want just a few plants but huge berries, snip these runners off! Yes, every single one of them. These Felco hand pruners are perfect for making clean cuts.
That way, all the energy will be sent to the fruit on that plant. (What to do with these runners? Keep reading)
Soon the plant will start bearing flowers – each of the flower buds will turn into a strawberry. You will probably find a LOT of flowers on EACH plant.
If you want the big berries, snip off at least half of the flowers. It might break your heart just a little bit, but believe me, you need to in order to get the rest of the flowers to grow into big juicy strawberries!
You will be rewarded with fewer berries per plant, but those berries will be so big! And juicy!
Just remember, the more flowers, the more berries, but they will be smaller. The fewer flowers, the fewer berries, but they will be definitely be large strawberries.
If you want extra large strawberries, keep just three or four flowers!
How to start new Strawberry plants
Loving strawberries so much you want even more plants? Here’s what to do:
When you want to have new plants for putting in the ground, always take rooted runners off your youngest mother plants.
Just snip the runner close to where the NEW growth is. Plant that baby in a separate bed or area. This is how you get new daughter plants!
(See, this is why we plant the runners into a different bed. This helps us after a few years to remember where the oldest plants are.)
By the end of the growing season, all the plants will be the same size. It’s easier for us to keep them in different beds.
Remove ALL the flowers that grow off your runners that first year to let the plant put its energy into the roots.
And snip off any more runners that appear.
This part is tough, because you see all the runners and flowers and think of all the strawberries coming!
But, if you leave the flowers on, you will have lots of strawberries but they will be small! To grow large strawberries, pick off a lot of the flowers!
This will pay off the following year, as you will get much larger berries.
What to do With Old Strawberry Plants
Over time, you will end up with a lot of strawberry plants, maybe too many. In this case, take any 3 or 4 year old plants and toss them.
Plants older than 3 years are usually past their prime and you will have lots of newer babies by that time. Keep replanting those new babies. You’ll be rewarded with healthier plants that bear big berries.
You will be able to have a really good berry harvest if you just keep cutting and planting the baby runners from the newest plants.
These will bear fruit the following year.
For other maintenance, all you really need to do is keep the berry bed weeded.
I have a lot of sawdust laid down as a mulch (we also use straw), and it has helped a lot to keep the weeds down.
Weeding and regular watering are all that are needed. Early each spring, I top dress the plants with a shovel full of compost.
Strawberry Pests:
You may find you have a problem with slugs and snails being attracted to the strawberries. The best ways to combat these pests is to use copper tape. Just staple it around the edge of your raised bed or pot.
You can also use diatomaceous earth; sprinkle this around the base of your plants. Finely crushed egg shells will work too, as these pests won’t want to cross the sharp edges of the shells. Just be sure the shells are well washed though or that may attract even more pests.
Our other Growing Berries posts
You can also take some of the small plants and plant those extra strawberry plants in containers. Group a few planters on your patio or deck.
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