Strawberries? Go for it
Strawberries are the quintessential summer fruit — fragrant, juicy jolts of f lavor that are best picked warm and ripe right out of the garden. But if you’re planting now, you’ll have to be ruthless to get the crop you crave. That means stripping the plants of every f lower, bud and berry for at least a month after you put them in the ground, says Yvonne Savio, retired director of Los Angeles County’s master gardener program and the voice behind the gardening blog
gardeninginla.net. Strawberries are best planted in the fall in Southern California, Savio said, so the plants have months of mild weather to settle in and develop the strong roots they’ll need for the hot summers to come. But strawberry plants are seemingly everywhere these days at nurseries and home supply stores, tempting us with the promise of fresh berries. So what to do now?¶
When planting in the spring, “you have to tell the plant to put its energy to its root system rather than putting out blossoms and fruit,” Savio said. “This is really hard for some people to do, but it’s really the most critical thing if you want the plant to continue growing through the heat and putting out berries.”
Strawberries are attractive plants and do well in containers
— about 20-inches deep or so — which makes them ideal for smallspace gardens, such as a sunny patio, or even a front porch. If you have the room for it, Savio suggests indulging with two- to threedozen plants, across a 4-by-8-foot garden space or raised bed. Your reward will be enough berries to put on your cereal every day, and more for your freezer.
And, as with most tender,
delicious fruit, you’ll be competing with birds and bugs to get your harvest, Savio said.
Ultimately, you may decide it’s simpler to buy berries at the farmer’s market, she said, “but they’re great for kids to grow and pick. It’s definitely one of those things that, as a gardener, you want to grow at least once.”