Growing Strawberries

Growing strawberries with children makes for an exciting and educational activity. It gets them outside, great for keeping your home tidy, and them in some dirt, which they love. You can also turn this into a learning experience. Watching and recording how the strawberry plant grows and fruits will allow them to see nature at work, and after all that learning, they get to eat all that hard work.

I do recommend growing strawberries in a hanging basket. This keeps them off the ground when it comes to snails & slugs. I have also found it easier to keep ants at bay from eating all those scrummy strawberries before they are ready to be picked. Being in a hanging basket you can also have it at eye level for your little ones, it keeps them fascinated & wanting to keep the plant alive.

Strawberries are very easy to grow, you can get them at any good nursery/ garden centre, Australia wide. Some of the new varieties have pink flowers, but you can also get the classic white flowered plants. *The best time to plant strawberries is during April and May in most parts of Australia, but they can be planted at any time if you find them for sale in the local garden centre. In our warmer climate zones you can plant and harvest strawberries throughout winter.

The ideal spot for growing strawberries is in full sun, in well-drained soil. This is easy to achieve in pots, but if you prefer to have your plants in the vegi plot, that is just as good. If the drainage in your soil isn’t that terrific, create a raised mound of soil and plant the strawberries into the top of the mound. Strawberries are greedy feeders, so get them off to a good start, with either good potting mix, or if they are going into the plot, adding in plenty of compost and well-rotted manure (eg, bagged cow manure or Dynamic Lifter).

The best method to keeping your fruit clean is to lay straw under the plants (yes, that’s where the name strawberry comes from). Prolonged wet weather can cause fungal diseases, if in pots, just move your strawberries to a more sheltered position. For more wild weather I find using covers in the patch a good substitute (eg. 3Lt milk containers with the bottom cut off, weighted/ tied down. Remember to remove once the wild weather has cleared).

Getting your children out in the backyard, isn't only good for running off their energy levels, it also allows them to experience a whole different learning experience. Growing strawberries teaches them things like patience, observation, and caring for other things. Which can only help when they get older.

Keep Happy.

The Imagination Team