Soft fruit
Strawberry
Fragaria × ananassa
Timings for your region
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Never sown — young plants go straight into the bed.
The harvest times belong to the following season, not to the year you plant.
Plantingmid July – mid August
Harvestearly June – early July
Practical tip
Never plant where potatoes, tomatoes or strawberries stood — verticillium stays in the soil. Leave four years, and move the bed every three years anyway.
Origin & history
The garden strawberry is not a European wild plant but a cross between two American species that happened by accident in France around 1750: the large-fruited Chilean Fragaria chiloensis, brought back in 1714 by the officer Amédée-François Frézier, stood there beside the North American scarlet strawberry. The Chilean plants flowered female only and set fruit purely because of that neighbour. Until then German gardens knew nothing but the small woodland strawberry; every variety sold today goes back to that handful of parents.
Varieties
The difference that decides your whole season is rarely printed large on the label: June-bearing varieties give the full crop in three or four weeks — “Honeoye” starts, “Korona” and “Elsanta” follow, “Malwina” is the latest. Everbearers such as “Ostara” or “Mara des Bois” keep setting small flushes after that first batch; never enough to make jam from, exactly right for a window box. “Senga Sengana” is still the variety for jam and the freezer. Buy certified young plants rather than runners from a neighbour — those bring viruses into the new bed.
Care
Set the plants so the crown sits exactly at soil level: deeper and it rots, higher and it dries out. Water without fail for the first three weeks — anything that does not root in during the summer lays no flower buds in autumn and stands empty in June. Cut every runner off in the first year. After that, let two or three per plant root and move them to the next patch between mid-July and about 20 August, so the planting is renewed before it starts to fade. Feed after harvest, not in spring: nitrogen in May gives you soft foliage instead of fruit.
What can go wrong
Verticillium wilt is the failure no amount of care answers: the outer leaves flag in sunshine and lie flat, the crown stays green at first, then the whole plant goes over. The fungus sits in the soil for years and an infected bed never comes clean again — all that is left is a new patch well away from potatoes, tomatoes and old strawberry ground. Grey mould is the trouble of a wet June: straw or mats under the fruit, keep the full 25 cm spacing instead of squeezing plants in, and take every part-rotten berry with you at each picking rather than leaving it lying.
Harvest, storage & kitchen
Strawberries do not ripen any further once picked: take them coloured right to the tip, with the calyx on, ideally in the morning as soon as the dew has dried. Wet berries do not keep a day. Unwashed and in a single layer on a plate they stand two or three days in the fridge; wash them just before eating and always before hulling, or water runs into the fruit. To freeze them, spread them on a tray first and bag them only once they are solid. For jam, a quarter of redcurrants in the pan pays off — strawberries on their own often stay too runny.
All timings are guide values for the given climate, not a guarantee. Weather, aspect and variety all have a say.