Choosing Your Grow bags

• Peat-free composts are improving, but most gardeners still find peat bags give the best results.
• If you’re reluctant to use peat, most garden centres and DIY stores will offer peat free growbags.
• As a compromise, insist peat is not dug from environmentally sensitive sites, or try low-peat growbags.

Preparation

• The best time for planting strawberries is September or October, although pot grown plants can be planted in spring and still produce a crop the same year.
• In cold weather, store your bags in a warm place for a few days, or cover with black plastic sheeting, to warm.
• Shake bags thoroughly to loosen the compost and prick the bottoms with a garden fork for drainage - strawberry plants must never be waterlogged.
• Strawberries need plenty of sun, so put the bags in a sheltered spot in the garden where they’ll get full sunlight.
• Putting the bags on a raised bench or low wall, as many PYO operations, do makes planting, caring for the plants and harvesting the crop easier for disabled gardeners or those who have difficulty in bending down.
• Plant six strawberry plants per growbag, cutting a cross the size of the root ball at each planting station. Then peel back the plastic, plant a plant in each cross and fold the plastic back over the roots.
• Set the crown of the plants above the level of the surrounding compost and plastic to avoid rot.

Watering and Feeding Growbags

• Plentiful water and feed are vital for strawberries to crop well.
• To ensure that water and feed soak in around the roots without running off, sink a couple of 9cm plastic plant pots into the top of the growbag between the plants and pour water and feed into these pots when watering.
• The growbag compost will provide enough fertiliser to nourish the plants until the blossom sets. Then feed weekly with a high potash liquid feed, like Tomorite.

Producing Early Strawberries

• If you include a couple of plants of an early varieties like Honeoye in your bag you’ll get fruit a few days earlier than with maincrop plants.
• For even earlier fruit, cover growbags with cloches from early March.
• Add a late variety like Amelia for even longer picking.

Replacing Plants

Your strawberries should crop well for three seasons. Then take runners from the old plants in late summer, burn the old plants, use the old compost for mulching around the garden and start again