Strawberry planter and beds

[Chooklady]

Hello

My friend gave me a gorgeous terracotta strawberry planter last year so I went about filling it with plants. I watered and fed them but this year they didn't take at all, I just hoicked the sorry looking things out into the compost

My strawberry beds are now only two years old and they have produced small but nice sweet fruit. Some crowns didn't even produce leaves this time....

What have I done wrong?

[Nicos]

Possibly too dry?
Teracotta does allow for loads of evaporation.
May have been different weather this Spring??

Maybe gel granules next year might help conserve water , and keeping the pot in a more shade/less windy spot??

How deep did you plant the strawberry crowns in the ground?
Too deep and they rot.

[Kirk]

The pretty tiered pots do not I think work, I tried one and it was a waste of time.
The ones in the catalogues will be filled with compost (maybe), then good plants taken from a bed put in the hole and the picture taken, I seriously doubt they actually grew in situ.

Beds:- Would expect that the bed needs new organic matter added in the form of manure, possibly the present filling dug over to mix it all up. Strawberries procuce both large fruit and a fair number from what is a small leafy plant. So they need the material at hand to be able to manufacture the fruit.

What are the strawberries? There are 3 or 4 types. The Summer ones produce the big fruit we all like, but they crop one a year then recover. There are Perpetual and (I think) Early strawberries, there may be a difference between Perpetual and Everbearing as well.

I think the Early varieties crop twice, Early (as implied) and again in Autumn - need to go look it up again. Other then the Summer ones the berries are smaller.

Seems I did not save the site that explained the assorted Srawberry types - it was US but LOTS of information. I was searching the information fr a friend and never realised there was the number of types and the details of each.

[BUFFS]

[QUOTE=Kirk;1361405]The pretty tiered pots do not I think work, I tried one and it was a waste of time.
The ones in the catalogues will be filled with compost (maybe), then good plants taken from a bed put in the hole and the picture taken, I seriously doubt they actually grew in situ.

Beds:

the alpine ones grow easily and crop from early july until the frosts and from 30 plants we fill a large yoghurt pot about every 8-10 days and the flavour is magic and just keep them weed free in poor well drained soil and they will love it...

[vixylix]

I struggled with mine too - I bought 5 bare root plants and 4 immediately upped and died on me. I took drastic action with the survivor and repotted leaving the root crown out of the soil and a bit of a gap around it - also moved it to my bedroom for immediate round the clock care This one then went great guns and has now been replanted outside - has produced a runner which is also going great guns after being speedily pegged - and the original has one almost ripe fruit and several tiny ones coming through.

Our resident bee (I'm sure its the same one that keeps coming back) LOVES the strawberry plant the most and spends alot of time there.

I think the weather has just not been ideal for them. I'm going to take BUFFS advice and try some alpine ones!