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Why Grow Your Own?

Nothing compares to the taste of homegrown strawberries (Fragaria sp.)  Those monsters you buy in punnets at the shops are generally a poor imitation. There are other reasons, too, to grow your own:

  • They taste better and provide more nutrition – they have been shown to often have higher sugar and vitamin content
  • They have no packaging, do not involve food miles except for the initial visit to the garden centre to purchase
  • You will save money over time
  • For kids, growing and picking them are fun and rewarding and provides a healthy snack alternative which they are more likely to eat if they have participated in growing them
  • Control over what goes on your plants (or doesn’t!)
  • Perhaps the paramount reason is that they do not have the high pesticide load common to store-bought or imported strawberries.  We discuss this in detail below.

So, let’s grow strawberries – berry tasty, berry fun, and berry, berry easy!

How to Grow them

Planting Schedule

Warm Areas: All Year
Temperate Areas: All Year
Cool to Cold Areas: All Year

Different Varieties

Because of the small size of individual plants, strawberries can be grown in small containers and on balconies. Many varieties are available in Australia differing in a range of properties such as size, preferred climate and disease resistance. See a selection here.

Position

Good position and good soil are the keys to successful strawberries.  Strawberries are actually a European cool-climate plant and, in much of Australia, need to be treated with a bit of love. For those of you lucky enough to live in warm areas, we suggest growing them under a shade cloth cover. This is “slip, slop, slap” to stop the sunburn…. they’ll thank you for it!

For the rest if us in cool climates, a nice, warm, full-sun to part-shade spot is perfect. It’s best to choose a position with morning sun and protection from afternoon rays.

They also need good air circulation, but since they are shallow-rooted they will dry out really quickly in the wind, especially in hanging baskets.  They also do well in pots and other containers such as old kettles and a variety of recycled objects. These can be easily relocated should the wind get up or the sun be too strong in summer.

Soil and Planting

Try to prepare beds and containers about a month or two in advance as this will ensure a deep, rich, beautiful soil. Avoid mushroom compost and chicken manure –  they can be a bit too alkaline. Two weeks before planting, pull back the mulch a bit and water the soil with a seaweed tea.  Although this sounds like a lot of work – it’s worth it at harvest time!

Plant them in a slightly raised bed (about 15 – 20cm) or a suitable pot, keeping about 20 – 30cm between your plants. This will give them space to grow, good air circulation and room to spread.  Strawberries need a slightly acid soil (pH of 6 – 6.5), enriched with compost, some well-rotted cow manure or worm castings.

Probably the best way to buy strawberries for your garden is not in seedling punnets or pots, but as runners purchased from your local garden centre or online. There is an art to planting runners and practice makes perfect. Use runners with healthy white roots, removing any crusty old roots and leaves from the crown. Dig quite wide holes and, in the centre, create a little pile of soil. Then, gently place the crown on this pile, fanning out the roots over the mound. Back fill the hole with soil and firm down, making sure the crown is kept at ground level and not buried. Water in well and mulch, avoiding the sensitive stems. Mulch well in between plants with straw (hence their name) or pine needles to prevent fungal diseases and reduce weed invasion.

When starting with seedlings instead, the hole you dig in the prepared soil just needs to accommodate the contents of the pot the plant came in.

Feed Me!

Even in a rich prepared soil, strawberries need some fertiliser (especially the ever-bearing varieties. Apply a weak manure tea at about week three, then a full strength seaweed tea when they start flowering. The seaweed solution helps prevent fungal infections.

Ever-bearing varieties need a bit more nitrogen, so give an occasional dose of  blood and bone.  If you are growing them in pots use half-strength fertilising solutions but increase the frequency.

Watering

Strawberries do best with sub-surface drip irrigation –  this can keep the soil  moist but not soaked.  Avoid watering  fruits and foliage to reduce chances of fungal infection.  Because of their shallow roots the soil can dry out quickly, so water regularly. But then, when fruiting starts, apply slightly less water to improve flavour.

Pest Control

Strawberries regularly appear high on the list of the “Dirty Dozen”.  This is a list compiled by the fruit and vegetable growing industry to show levels of pesticide contamination of commercially available produce. The most recent list in 2025 for Australia shows strawberries in first place!  Imported produce is additionally affected by chemical fumigation used during storage.  The bumpy, fragile nature of the surface of this delicious fruit is a factor in risks of viral and fungal infection as well as the retention of chemicals to deal with them.

The worst infections for home-grown strawberries are large range of viruses that can, over-time, build up and destroy your plants. One tell-tale sign of virus is yellow stripes appearing through the leaves. Infected plants should be pulled out and either bagged or burned.

To minimise infections, it is recommended that you move strawberry plants to a new bed with fresh soil, every three years. You may need to do that more frequently if a number of plants near each other have been infected.  Strawberries shouldn’t be planted where tomatoes, eggplants, capsicums or chillis have been for at least three years since they have a tendency to pass on viruses.

Mould and fungus can also be an issue, especially when the air is cold and there is water persisting on the foliage. The best way to prevent these such problems is to avoid overhead watering and to use straw mulch.

And watch our for slugs!  If they do turn up, follow our tips here.

 

 

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