TOP TIPS FOR TOP CROPS

• Strawberries need free-draining soil, full sun and irrigation. Prior to planting, enrich the soil with compost and general fertiliser. If planting in winter, bareroot crowns need nitrogen to grow enough foliage to support the roots and fruit, but not so much that they grow nothing but leaves. • Mulch to reduce weed competition and keep the ripening berries clean.

• The plants are frost-hardy but late frosts can damage the first flush of flowers.

• Growing strawberries in pots? Feed weekly with liquid fertiliser and crank up the water supply. The more food and water the plants get while the fruit is developing, the bigger your berries will be.

• Ease up on overhead watering at the first sign of red on the cheeks of the fruit. From this point on you want firm, sweet berries, not bloated, mushy ones. If the weather’s dry, use a leaky hose to irrigate.

• Slugs, snails, slaters and ants are often blamed for holes in the fruit, but these tend to target fruit after rot has set in.

• Replace one third of your plants each year to maintain fruiting vigour. To do this, simply transplant the runners that take root around established plants in late summer.

• Plant bee-friendly companions such as alyssum, oregano and borage. Strawberries are self-fertile but university researchers in Germany found that bee-pollinated fruit is bigger, brighter, more uniformly shaped, firmer, longer lasting and, most importantly, sweeter to eat (with the optimal sugar-acid ratio). Fertilised seeds release hormones that sweeten the flesh; self-pollinated fruit fails to make these hormones, resulting in small, bland, malformed strawberries. This helps to explain why early strawberries, which flower in late winter when bees are reluctant to leave their hives, are often smaller and a bit mutant-looking. So choose netting that bees can still get through.