How To Plant A Strawberry Container

For a bumper crop next year, grab a tub for your strawberries

It’s easy to grow a healthy, heavy-yielding crop of strawberries in just one container, and early autumn is the perfect time to plant them up so they can get established in the warmed soil, settle in and produce more of a bumper crop come spring and early summer.

Three or four plants in a large pot will give you plenty of fruit to be getting on with.

They need watering and feeding all through their growing season of spring and summer, and to be kept moist at all times.

Use plastic mulch on the surface of the pot’s soil to conserve water.

They’re low maintenance plants, in that you can pop the bare-roots in now in some good multi-purpose compost, 20- 30cm (8-12in) apart, and they’ll furnish you with fruit next year.

Make sure the crowns are at soil level and the roots have plenty of room.

In many ways they’re better grown in containers as they will be spared ground soil pest and disease, though they can come up against vine weevil grubs, which can munch all the way through roots.

THREE STRAWBERRIES TO GROW

Alpine strawberry (For shade) A great one to grow in shade. Uncultivated species with small, rounded fruits, which are tasty if not as large, juicy and sweet as cultivated types.

‘Mount Everest’ (A climber!) An ever-bearer with fruits from June to September, you can grow this one up a trellis or a large obelisk for an attractive, but tasty, display.

‘Cambridge Favourite’ (The juiciest one!) One of the best-loved varieties, great for containers and a high yield of flavoursome and large fruits. Has an RHS Award of Garden Merit.