Growing Strawberries in the UK: A Beginner's Guide

Few things say British summer quite like a bowl of homegrown strawberries, still warm from the sun. The shop-bought ones are bred to survive lorries and supermarket shelves, not to taste of anything much. Grow your own and you get the real thing: soft, fragrant and properly sweet. Better still, strawberries are genuinely forgiving for a first-timer, thrive in pots as happily as in a border, and give you free plants year after year if you know the trick. This is the whole year in one guide.

Which type of strawberry should I grow?

There are three types to choose from, and the difference is all about when, and how, they fruit.

Summer-fruiting are the classic strawberry and the ones most people picture. They give one heavy crop over two or three weeks in early to midsummer, roughly June into July, with early, mid and late varieties if you want to stretch that window a little. Big berries, big flavour, all at once. If you want a glut for jam and freezing, these are your plants.

Perpetual types (also sold as everbearing) work differently. Instead of one big flush they produce smaller pickings on and off from early summer right through to the first autumn frosts. You never get a mountain at once, but you get a handful most weeks over a long season, which suits eating fresh straight off the plant.

Alpine strawberries are the little gems. These dainty plants produce tiny, intensely aromatic berries here and there through summer, and they cope with light shade where the others would sulk. The fruit is fiddly to pick and small, but the flavour is concentrated and lovely scattered over a pudding. They are also happy to fend for themselves once settled.

Buying plants: runners, potted or cold-stored?

You will meet three ways of buying strawberries. Bare-root runners are dormant young plants sold without soil, usually the cheapest option and sold in autumn or spring. They look like nothing much, a few roots and a stubby crown, but they take off quickly once planted. Potted plants cost more but are already growing, easy to get going at almost any time in the season, and handy if you only want a few. Cold-stored runners are runners lifted and kept chilled, then sold for planting later in spring and into summer; they crop about 60 days after going in the ground, which is useful for a later harvest.

For a first patch, a bundle of bare-root runners is the cheapest way to fill a bed. Buy from a reputable supplier so you start with clean, virus-free stock.

When and how do I plant strawberries?

The two main planting windows are early autumn and early spring. Autumn planting is the traditional favourite: the roots settle in before winter and reward you with a fuller crop the next summer. Spring planting works well too, though on spring-planted stock it pays to pinch off the first flowers so the plant builds strength before it fruits.

Wherever you plant, the golden rule is the crown. That is the growing point in the centre where the leaves emerge, and it must sit right at soil level. Bury it and it rots; leave it too high and proud and the roots dry out. Aim for the base of the crown to rest lightly on the surface.

1. 1

   Prepare the ground

   Choose a sunny, sheltered spot and fork in plenty of well-rotted organic matter or garden compost a couple of weeks beforehand. Strawberries want fertile, well-drained soil that never waterlogs.

2. 2

   Space them out

   Set plants 35 to 45cm apart, with about 75cm between rows. They need airflow to stay dry and healthy, so resist the urge to crowd them.

3. 3

   Get the depth right

   Dig a hole big enough to spread the roots, then position the plant so the crown sits exactly at soil level, not buried, not exposed.

4. 4

   Firm and water

   Backfill, firm the soil gently around the roots, and water in well. Keep newly planted strawberries watered for the first few weeks while they establish.

Bury the crown and it rots; leave it too high and it dries out. Rest it right at soil level and it thrives.

Where do strawberries grow best?

Strawberries are wonderfully versatile. All they really ask for is sun, shelter and free-draining soil. A sunny border is ideal, but they are equally at home in containers, growbags, hanging baskets and purpose-made strawberry planters. Growing in pots has real advantages: you control the compost, you can move them into the sun, and lifting the fruit off the ground keeps it away from slugs and mud. For a small patio or balcony, a hanging basket of strawberries is one of the best-value edibles you can grow. Fill containers with a good multipurpose compost and remember they will dry out far faster than open ground, so keep on top of watering.

How do I care for strawberries through the year?

Once the plants are in, the job is mostly steady, seasonal attention rather than hard work.

Mulch with straw. As the fruits start to develop and weigh the stems down, tuck a layer of dry straw under and around the plants. This keeps the berries off damp soil so they stay clean and dry and are far less likely to rot. This is, quite literally, where the "straw" in strawberry is thought to come from. Rake the straw away in autumn, though, because a damp layer over winter shelters slugs and fungal disease.

Net against the birds. Blackbirds will find your strawberries the moment they blush red. Build a simple frame of canes over the plants and drape netting over it before the fruit ripens. Use a reused or plastic-free net where you can, and keep it taut so birds and hedgehogs cannot get tangled.

Water at the base. Water in dry spells, aiming at the soil rather than over the leaves, and keep water off the crown and the ripening fruit. Wet fruit and wet crowns invite grey mould. Watering in the morning lets any splashes dry off through the day.

Remove runners. Through summer the plants throw out long runners with baby plantlets on the end. Unless you want them for propagating, snip them off, so the plant puts its energy into fruit rather than making babies. More on saving those runners below.

Good compost underpins all of this, and it is easy to make your own. Our guide to composting at home walks through it.

What should I feed strawberries?

Go easy. Plants growing in decent, well-prepared soil often need no extra feeding at all, and too much nitrogen just gives you lush leaves and little fruit. The exception is once flowering begins: switch to a high-potash feed, and a standard tomato feed is perfect. Potash (potassium) is the nutrient that drives flowering and fruiting, which is exactly what you want. Container and growbag plants are hungrier because their roots are confined, so feed those fortnightly through the growing season, starting with a general feed and moving to high-potash tomato food as the first flower buds form.

When and how do I harvest?

Pick strawberries when they are red all over, right up to the shoulders under the leaves, as they do not ripen further once picked. Harvest in dry weather and ideally during the warmest part of the day, when the flavour is at its fullest. Pick with the little green cap and a short stalk still attached rather than tugging the berry off, which bruises it. Check the plants every day or two at the peak of the season, both to catch fruit at its best and to clear any that is going soft before mould can spread.

How do I get free plants from runners?

This is the part that makes strawberries such good value. Those runners you were snipping off are free plants in waiting. In summer, choose a healthy plantlet on a runner and peg it down into a small pot of compost sunk into the ground next to the parent (a bent piece of wire or a stone will hold it in place). Keep it watered, and within a few weeks it roots into the pot. Once it has a decent root system, cut the stem linking it to the parent and you have a brand new plant, identical to the one it came from, for nothing.

Why replace strawberry plants every three years?

Strawberries are not forever. After about three years the plants slow down, crop less, and tend to pick up viruses that build in older stock. The fix is simple: replace them every three or four years, using the free plants you have rooted from runners or fresh bought-in stock. One important catch: do not plant your new strawberries in the same soil the old ones came out of, because soil-borne problems linger there. Move them to a fresh bed, or refresh the soil and compost completely if space is tight. Rotating your patch this way keeps every generation cropping heavily.

What problems should I watch for?

Strawberries are easy, but a handful of pests and diseases are worth knowing.

Grey mould (botrytis) is the big one: a fuzzy grey rot that turns ripe berries to mush, especially in wet, still weather. Prevention is everything here, which is why we space plants for airflow, mulch with straw, water at the base and pick promptly. Remove and bin any affected fruit fast, as the spores spread.

Slugs and snails love ripening strawberries. The straw mulch and container growing both help by keeping fruit off the ground, and a nightly patrol in damp weather catches the culprits.

Birds will strip a plant in a day once the fruit colours up, so net before the berries ripen rather than after they have found them.

Vine weevil is mainly a problem in pots. The adults notch the leaf edges, but it is the fat white grubs in the compost that do real damage, eating the roots so the whole plant suddenly collapses. If a container plant wilts for no obvious reason, tip it out and check the roots. Biological controls (microscopic nematodes watered into the compost) are the usual organic answer, and the RHS vine weevil guide covers the options.

Where to next

Strawberries are one of the friendliest fruits to start with, and once you have the rhythm you will want more. For companions in the fruit patch, browse the rest of our fruit growing guides, then keep that compost heap turning to feed next year's crop.