Soil mixture for strawberries?

[SarzWix]

I've just had delivery of my bare-root strawberry plants, sooner than I expected and I haven't got the planter ready for them yet
So, my question is, what do you think is the best mixture to plant them in? It's fairly a big old packing crate they're going in - about 4ft x 1.5ft, & I don't want to spend a small fortune on MP compost. I've got half a tubtrug of sieved soil, I was wondering if it'd be ok to mix that with some bought topsoil, MP compost & silver sand, in a 1:1:1 proportion? Would that do for drainage & nutritional needs?

[veg4681]

This may or may not be relevant to your query on soil mixture but I had some interesting replies, not that many unfortunately so it's your gut feeling at the end of the day.

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...ers_11705.html

[SarzWix]

Thanks Veg, I thought someone had asked this question before, but then I couldn't find the thread!
I think I'll try the idea I have & see what it looks like

[scarey55]

It says on the other thread that they like potash. Will it help if I put the wood ash from my fire on my strawberries?

[veg4681]

It says on the other thread that they like potash. Will it help if I put the wood ash from my fire on my strawberries?

In another thread, Birdie Wife said that the potash from bonfire/wood ash doesn't keep well so timing could be a problem. Also I think potash is only added when the strawberry starts producing flowers. For feed, you hear of people using also seaweed or tomato liquid weed but I think you get the gist of things and just go with the flow.

[scarey55]

Thank you for that Veg4681.

Looks as if I will use tomato feed. Although OH reckons I'm soft, I don't fancy having the wood burner going in the summer just to keep the strawberries happy