Strawberry Container Gardening

We love strawberries! Who doesn’t? But it has been making us sick to buy strawberries at the store, because they’re getting so expensive. When we buy them, they’re on sale. Good news, right? Wrong. Strawberries on sale means they’re all rotten in the bottom of the container. So, it’s really not a deal anyway. Oh, and for the sale price, they even throw in a few free fruit flies.

Now for us, we will wait on these guys… fresh, homegrown strawberries!

We planted everbearing variety of strawberries, because they’re a better plant for container gardening. They don’t produce runners, like the June bearing strawberries. The difference between the two may be obvious by their name. Basically, June bearing strawberries produce fruit for two to three weeks. Everbearing strawberries will produce strawberries in the spring, summer, and fall.

Why did we choose the Topsy Turvy Strawberry Planter?

Here’s the cool thing about this upside down strawberry planter: a lot of plants in a little space. It takes 30 strawberry plants to feed a family of four. In this one planter, we planted 18 plants. It could have held more, but our starter plants were pretty big and established. We had the room in the garden, but now I have all that gardening space free! Folks with small yards and apartments will also appreciate strawberry container gardening.

Also, we choose the upside down planter was because of garden pests. The goal is to feed my family strawberries, not the family of rabbits and herd of deer in the yard. By having all the plants in such a tiny space off the ground, it will make it easier to keep pests out of them.

Here’s what we did:

We followed the instructions that came with the planter. It was really easy, and kids even enjoy planting these planters. We mixed the soil (coco fiber, potting soil, and a little compost), planted, and watered. That was it! The directions say to hang to plant, but it was easier for us to plant on the ground.

And a few suggestions:

• It’s easy to water, since all the plants are in one place. Because there are a lot of root systems in one container, consider adding a soil amendment, like coco fiber growing medium, to keep the soil from drying out. Or this organic potting soil already has coir, coco fiber, added to it.
• It is heavy. So, if you don’t have a sturdy place for a hanging planter, try a strawberry ground planter or check out our other strawberry gardening products.

Come on, try it: grow your own strawberries. Click here for more information on how to grow strawberries. Can’t wait for strawberries on salads and strawberry salsa!

UPDATE: May 5, 2009

While planting the strawberries, we potted a few in containers, too. Some critter pulled the strawberry plant right out of the container, and a slug was munching away! But the Topsy Turvy Strawberry Planter– no slugs and no critters! No sign of pests, and the strawberries taste great!