9 tips for growing sweet and bountiful strawberries

Commercial strawberries have gotten bigger and bigger. Your homegrown berries won't be as large, but they'll be twice as flavourful.

For a family of four, plant about a dozen June-bearing strawberries, which fruit all at once in early summer, and a dozen plants of an everbearing type, which produce crops in spring and late summer.

• Each plant should yield about 250 millilitres (one cup) per year.

Strawberries are sensitive to day length, but different varieties respond to the changing lengths in different ways.

• June-bearing strawberries: Bloom all at once in early spring, and their fruits are ready to harvest by early summer. 'Earliglow' and 'Surecrop' are June bearers.
• Everbearing varieties: Produce some berries in spring and many more in fall. 'Ogallala' and 'Ozark Beauty' are everbearers.
• Day-neutral varieties: Help fill the fruiting gap by blooming later in spring and producing in early summer. They often continue to bloom for longer than June bearers.
• Alpine strawberries: Are small, but they produce intensely scented fruits. 'Alexandria' boasts juicy fruits and 'Alpine Yellow' has small golden fruits.

Strawberries like their soil to be rich, acidic and well drained.

• In early spring prepare a thoroughly tilled, well-weeded bed amended with plenty of compost or aged manure.
• Plant strawberries on an overcast day so the plants won't be stressed by strong sunshine.
• Strawberries are fussy about their planting depth. Plant so that the crowns are just above the soil line. If planted too deep, the plants will rot; if too shallow, they'll dry out.
• Mulch between plants with pine needles, straw or chopped leaves.

• Once an existing strawberry bed becomes less productive, start a new one in another part of the garden.

But don't choose a spot where tomatoes, peppers or potatoes have been grown in the previous three years; strawberries are prone to the same soil-borne diseases that attack these vegetables.

• Strawberries need to be kept moist, but take care: water only in the morning so the plants can dry before sundown.

This lessens the chances of fruit-rot diseases and also discourages slugs.

• Strawberries will ripen and be ready to pick sooner if you protect the beds with plastic tunnels or row covers very early in spring.

Be sure to leave the ends of the tunnels open on warm days so pollinating insects can get to the blossoms.

• Help young runners put down roots by pinning them directly to the soil with 10-centimetre  lengths of wire bent into a U shape.
• You can also bury eight-centimetre pots in the soil and peg the runners into them. Cut the runner from its parent six weeks later and wait another week to transplant it.

1. Fertilize established strawberries in early spring just as new growth begins.
2. Mow back the tops in midsummer, which helps prevent diseases, and watch for signs of new growth before feeding a second time in early fall. The fall feeding helps the plants develop buds that will grow into the next season's blossoms.

• In areas with hard freezes, mulch after the first frost with several inches of straw, hay or other coarse material.
• Remove it in spring after all danger of frost has passed.