Strawbs are flowering - advice

[sewer rat]

The weather up here has been dismal and the ground is still too cold to plant out my 700 oddstrawberry plants - most are outside but are sheltered by the tunnel. However some are inside the tunnel and 60 or so were left in hanging baskets over the winter, suspended from the tunnel crop bars.
I noticed today that two of the plants in pots have produced flowers and three of the hanging basket plants have followed suit.
Should I remove the flowers now or just leave them ?

[shirlthegirl43]

Hi Rat, personally I would leave them to flower and fruit - what better advert for your excellent produce than super-early strawbs

[helly]

I've had my strawb's hardening off on the decking for a couple of weeks and hope to plant out into their beds this week, a few have flower on asw ell I'm just going to let them flower as they are young plants and see how I get on . Gud luck with yours

[SarzWix]

The ones outside, or in small pots I'd nip off; they might well produce fruit, but, there's more chance of them being caught by a frost or otherwise damaged and the plants will use up ebergy trying. If you nip them, they'll flower again later and should have more chance of producing good fruit. The ones inside the tunnel in hanging baskets have more chance of decent fruit, with a good feed.

[Alice]

The weather has been much warmer here today Rat, so hopefully you are on the way to better things.
Since it is only a few plants that are flowereing now (and not your whole crop) I would leave them and draw lots for which lucky customers are getting the super early strawberries, or feed them to Iona.

[helly]

I went ahead and planted some strawberries in their beds today. Do i need to put netting over them at this stage or do they need help from the bees and things for pollination?

[realfood]

You will probably need to hand pollinate the strawberries that are in the polytunnel. Commercially, I understand that they use mini-hives of bumble bees, or a vibrating wand.

[sewer rat]

The weather has been much warmer here today Rat, so hopefully you are on the way to better things.
Since it is only a few plants that are flowereing now (and not your whole crop) I would leave them and draw lots for which lucky customers are getting the super early strawberries, or feed them to Iona.

Forget the customers - me and Iona will fight over them !

I went ahead and planted some strawberries in their beds today. Do i need to put netting over them at this stage or do they need help from the bees and things for pollination?

Don't need netting til fruits are forming Helen.

You will probably need to hand pollinate the strawberries that are in the polytunnel. Commercially, I understand that they use mini-hives of bumble bees, or a vibrating wand.

I have loads of insect life in my tunnel - pollination is not a problem for me in that way. The majority of my strawbs will be outside - the ones in the hanging baskets have been there since last year and were used principally to take runners from. Most of them will be planted outside as I have room for 60 baskets in the tunnel and I have about 50 tumbling toms and garden pearl toms to put in them.

[burnie]

The local fruit farms that grow strawbs, open the tunnels up for the winter,they are just getting the plastic ready to go back on.So I guess you're getting a head start ,there's no flowers on any of mine yet.I'd leave the flowers on and let nature take it's course,keep us posted as to how you get on.

[sewer rat]

I had a good look at the strawbs this evening and the ones in the hanging baskets will now be staying in the hanging baskets as their root systems are huge. The 700 or so that are in 3" pots will be planted out. This does however raise another problem to solve as I have 50 Tumbling Tom tomato plants that will now have to find alternative accomodation. I have plenty of 5 litre pots so I suppose they could go in them and then I could sit them on the railway sleepers that form the central path in the tunnel - might look good but would make working a bit more dificult.