Strawberries Are Going Nuts Right Now

My strawberry bed looks absolutely unhinged right now. White flowers, green nubs, full red berries, and runners shooting off in every direction like the plants are trying to escape. This is peak season and if you don’t pay attention for about two weeks straight, you’ll miss most of it.

I’ve been growing strawberries in Redmond for a few years and the learning curve was steeper than I expected. Mostly because I kept ignoring them during the exact window they needed me most. Turns out “low maintenance” and “no maintenance” are different things. Who knew.

What’s Actually Happening Right Now

June in the Pacific Northwest is weird for strawberries. You get flowers and ripe fruit at the same time, sometimes on the same plant. The June-bearing varieties are hitting their one big flush right now. Everbearing types are just getting started and will keep going into September if you treat them right.

If you planted bare root crowns back in March or April, some of your plants might still be in flower. Don’t panic. They’re fine. They’re just on their own schedule.

Pick More Than You Think You Should

This is the one I got wrong the first two seasons. I’d wait for the berry to be absolutely perfect before picking it, deep red all the way to the stem, firm, magazine-worthy. Meanwhile half my crop was rotting on the ground two feet away because I was busy admiring one berry.

Pick early and often. A berry that’s red about three-quarters of the way up will finish ripening on your counter in a day. And picking frequently signals the plant to keep producing. Leave overripe fruit sitting on the plant and everything slows down. It’s basically berry peer pressure.

Watering: The Grey Sky Trap

Here’s the thing about June in Redmond. It looks wet. The sky is grey half the time, everything feels damp, and it’s easy to assume your plants are fine. They might not be.

Strawberries in flower and fruit need consistent moisture, about an inch a week. If we haven’t had real rain (not drizzle, actual rain) I’m out there supplementing. I water at the base, not overhead. Wet leaves and wet fruit during fruiting season is a fast track to gray mold, and once that shows up in the bed it spreads fast.

A cheap soaker hose laid along the row is genuinely the move here. I grabbed mine at Home Depot on clearance at the end of last summer, think it was something like $6.83. Keeping the foliage dry while the roots stay happy makes a real difference.

Runners: Free Plants or Energy Vampires, Your Call

Every strawberry plant in my bed is currently sending out runners. Long green stems with tiny plantlets at the ends, just laying there waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

If your plants are young (first or second year) and still fruiting, cut those runners off. The plant is trying to do too many things at once and the fruit suffers. If you want to propagate new plants for free, wait until after fruiting is done, then pin a runner to a pot of soil and let it root. Takes a few weeks. Completely free new plant. That’s my kind of math.

I currently have about fifteen runners I’m trying to decide about. My younger daughter wants to pot all of them. We will probably pot all of them. We don’t have room for all of them. So there’s that.

Feeding During Fruiting

Don’t go heavy on nitrogen right now. I made this mistake with a granular fertilizer the first year and ended up with enormous lush plants and maybe eight berries total. Nitrogen is great for leaves. Not the goal at the moment.

If you want to feed during fruiting, use something with a higher middle and last number, phosphorus and potassium. A diluted fish emulsion works fine and costs almost nothing per application. Or honestly, just wait. If you amended your bed reasonably in spring, your plants are probably okay through the fruiting window.

After the Flush

Once your June-bearers finish up, which here is usually late June into early July, it’s time for renovation. Cut the foliage down to a few inches, thin the bed, compost the clippings (unless there’s disease, then trash them), and top dress with a little compost. The plants will put out fresh growth for the rest of summer and come back stronger next year.

I skipped renovation the first year because it felt mean. The plants looked rough the following spring. Lesson learned, as usual, by doing the wrong thing first. Which, now that I think about it, is kind of how I learned everything in this garden.

Anyway. Go check your bed. There’s probably a ripe berry hiding under a leaf right now that you’re about to miss. I almost guarantee it.

Strawberry season is short. You really can’t afford to straw-berry around.

Photo by Ana azuria on Unsplash