Avoid encouraging excessive, soft foliage production (eg, by excessive high-nitrogen feeding) as these leaves are more susceptible to damage. If your plants are affected, keep strawberries well watered, mulched and fed to encourage the production of new healthy leaves. Severe infections may cause loss of vigour and cropping if they develop in spring, but generally attacks are worst in late summer or early autumn so cause little significant damage. The infection may also spread to the leaf stalks and flower stems. In extreme cases the spots may coalesce, discolouring the entire leaf. Purple-red spots, usually with a greyish centre develop on the leaves, with older leaves being worst affected. Use adult traps to reduce the number of active adults or treat the grubs with nematodes. Vine weevilsĪdult vine weevils are fond of the fruit, and the grubs will eat through the roots. Prevent it by keeping the plant well watered and maintain good air circulation by weeding and removing runners. Powdery mildew shows as red patches on upper leaves, a white covering on the leaves, and cupping of the leaves. The yield was reasonable, but if you’re after a large crop then you’re better off growing them where the plants will have more root space to thrive within.ĭiscover our Best Buy composts for containers The sweetness we found in these strawberries might be due to them being slightly dry through a very hot summer. But if you’re someone who waters less regularly, you might find the plants in the side pockets dry out and die. Our verdict If you water regularly, strawberry planters are a viable option. If you keep the strawberries for more than one year, the pots will need weeding. They look attractive and it raises the crop above the ground, stopping many pests.Ĭons Tricky to water and they dry out very quickly. Pros Gave a reasonable crop in the second year with the sweetest strawberries. Try our Best Buy growing bags Strawberry planters Some people grow strawberries in hanging baskets, but we found the birds ate the fruit before it could be harvested. If you have poor soil or don’t want to bend or kneel, growing bags or pots are great, but you might not get as much fruit and you’ll need to stay on top of pests and watering. On the downside, it can be more difficult to harvest the fruit and trim runners if you don’t like bending. It’s easy to water and weed the plants, and simple to protect the ripe fruit. If you have suitable, disease-free soil, nothing is easier than popping your strawberry plants in the ground and letting them grow, and we found in our tests that this was the best way to achieve a bumper crop of tasty strawberries. Each crop was again weighed and assessed for quality and taste in summer in the second year. We recorded the harvest from each variety in the first year, then the plants were tidied and the runners removed in the autumn. We erected a fruit cage so that birds were prevented from helping themselves to the ripe fruits. By spring, the plants were well established. We had to use growing bags, as our previous trial bed in Capel Manor, north London had been struck with verticillium wilt, a fungal infection of the soil, so we couldn’t replant in that area. We planted these six plants into two growing bags, three in each bag. We bought six dormant plants of 12 strawberry varieties in autumn. Rating ignores price and is based on: yield 50% flavour 20% quality 20% pests and diseases 10%.Yields are given from the second year of the trial. USING THE TABLE OVERALL RATING The more stars the better.
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