I experimented this year to see how dense of a planting I could make. In a 100' X 30' area I planted 970 Seascape "Day-neutral" strawberries. They were planted in mid April and I've just started picking about a week ago. Where they were planted it had wild blackberries and Canadian thistle and was in pretty bad shape fertility-wise. So in each row I played down about 5 lbs of humates, 1 cubic yard of composted douglas fir bark, and 15 lbs of feather meal and 15 lbs of rock phosphate. I layed down black landscape fabric and drip tape underneath. Cut X's in the fabric 15" apart and planted the plants with a garden trowel. Plant roots were dipped in a mix of mycorrhizae powders and beneficial bacterias. Also maxi crop soluble seaweed powder. I used fresh fir sawdust in the aisles to hold down the landscape fabric.

Those are some nice looking plants and great looking fruit. You did GOOD!

Thanks! I had to put up some deer fencing to keep bambi out. It's pretty tight spacing for picking. And me with my big size 12 feet are challenged to not step on the fruit.

BP,
You've got the strawberry growing figured out!!!

Your strawberries look great Carl.

Keith

Fantastic, looks like a lot of hard work and fore-thought paying off.

Nah, it's not a Colombian thing so I gotta do my own. I did learn her how to bake pies though!


Thanks for the kind comments guys. We've been growing strawberries on this land for around 68 years. It is sometimes a challenge to get good results as strawberries are sensitive to build ups of some of the watersport types of soil borne fungi. ie: fusarium, rhizoctonia, and many others. I've been starting to experiment with laying down great quantities of compost to help encourage the beneficial bacterias/fungi to out compete the bad guys. This patch is about as good as it gets so I'm pretty happy with the results. We had not grown strawberries on this particular spot for over 40 years too, so that helps a lot as well.

BTW, six 12 pint flats picked today which I sold at our Tuesday Farmers market at $5/pint. They went fast.

Seems you grow strawberries as well as you catch BIG beavers. Good job.

How do you keep the weeds under control. You can't cultivate or hoe strawberry plants since they cover the whole ground. I always have weeds come up through the plants that finally choke the strawberries. I've considered planting through newspaper but haven't tried it.

The whole 100X30 ft patch is covered in groundcloth. I cut little X's in the cloth and hand planted with a trowel. What few weeds come up next to a crown get hand pulled. When I put the sawdust down in the aisles I also got a little into the X's around the crowns. Weed seed typically needs sunlight to germinate. I have had to pull some blackberry sprouts out.

BTW, I grew up hoeing strawberries. The tractor cultivation got the aisles and we hand hoed around the crowns at least twice in the spring and then again in late summer. We were always organic so no herbicides were ever used.

2X

Looks AMAZING !!!!!!

970 plants!! That is a lot of plants to hand plant with a trowel. Glad you’ve got the weed control figured out.

You gonna take fresh strawberries to Waldo,Lake??

Sure would like to. I doubt I can make the trip this year.

I figured I would add these two pics of when I first planted and a little later to see the genesis of the patch ... (For those that like this kind of pictorial tutorage):

Jeez I'd say!!!

Very healthy looking plants and great looking berries too. What varieties or variety are you raising? Are those first year plants that harvest thawt well or 2nd or more year old. I plant only June bearing here. We get hot and dry
mid sumer here and the everbearing did not work well when I tried a row.

Bryce

Bryce, those are "Seascape". I have friend in Wausau that does very well with them. Say the word and I'll send you some starts to try. They can be planted any time of year really. Well, in Wisconsin not winter obviously. But August would work for you. These plants were planted as bareroot crowns in mid April.

Carl