Strawberries are an easy to grow fruit that are well suited to Britians climate, there are two variety of plants, either those that give one big crop once a year during the summer or the variety that give several smaller several crops for about half the year.

First thing you need to buy a planter to grow your strawberries in you don't have to get something as fancy as indicated in the below photo, as a plastic pot will do just as well.

Now that you have your strawberry planter, you next need to get some strawberry plants, which are available from virtually all of the garden centres and supermarkets such as homebase, B&Q, and supermarkets. The cheapest source as are super markets such as Lidl and Aldi for not only strawberries but many garden consumables such as compost, though the choice on offer in variety on offer is usually limited to just one choice.

That's the hard part done, the easy part is actually planting the strawberries. Place some loose stones at the bottom of the pot to aid drainage and then compost upto the first layer of the planter.

Now to plant the strawberries into the planter, adding compost as you go along. Just push the plants in and then add a little compost each layer covering the roots .

Ouch! becareful as the planter does get quite heavy as it fills up with compost and strawberry plants, easy to drop!

Now all that's needed is regular watering, keep the plants in a sunny spot and then wait until July / August for a full crop of lovely fresh strawberries to appear.

Normally strawberry plants should be good for 3 years before the fruit produced starts to diminish in size and quality. (Planted at Silverdale Close, Sheffield, during March 2012).

By Nadeem Walayat

http://www.walayatfamily.com

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