Botanical Name: Fragaria vesca
How to grow it:
Strawberry is a very hardy, low growing perennial that spreads by runners and grown for it’s delicious red fruits.
Growing the plant is very easy indeed – it tolerates drought and handles sun or shade equally as well.
Many gardeners find it quite labour intensive to maximise the fruit production and prevent the fruit being taken by birds and rodents. In commercial production a lot of artificial fertilisers and herbicides are used, crops are treated as annuals, and plastic is laid down every year to keep weeds down.
Myself, I prefer to grow them as a perennial and weed and feed them the same as I do the rest of my garden. This means lower yields and smaller fruit, but tasty all the same and chemical free. Some years I get hardly any fruit, but occasionally I get great crops for almost no labour at all.
It does pay to thin plants out every year and liquid fertilise the foliage, and daily picking when in season means the birds don’t get the entire crop!
Propogation is simple – simply pull runners out by their roots and plant them in pots or direct in their new position, watering well for the first week or so.
Grows really well in pots, regular fertilising is advised.
Nutrition:
Strawberry has high levels of vitamin C along with Vitamin A & B. It also contains calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium, silicon & sulphur.
Strawberry leaves fresh or dried can be made into tea and used as a tonic for many conditions.
Using it in the kitchen:
Ripe fruits are eaten fresh in hand or added to a variety of sweet dishes. Try roasting them in the oven for a flavour explosion! Also cooked into Jams and condiments that we all know and love.
Other info:
Strawberry plants make an excellent living mulch around trees and bushes and can be used as garden borders to stop grass encroaching. Even when ignored you’ll get fruit harvests when the weather conditions are right
