After four years in the same spot, the strawberry patch in my back yard has become a popular hot spot in the slug and snail community. There are around 100 plants in the patch and I think we got maybe one or two berries for human consumption last year. Earwigs and ants also find this a great place to hang out. What used to be a delight to the girls, is now a disappointing yuck-fest as they search fruitlessly for a red berry that does not have a chew hole in it. Winter debris abounds, spreading tuffs of bermuda grass from the neighboring lawn crowd the strawberry plants, and the mounds they were originally planted in have sunk to uselessness. I have read that strawberries are such heavy feeders, taking a big toll on soil fertility, that they can only be successfully harvested in the same spot for 3-5 years in a row. I found that harvests drop off after two years, but also, I am a lackluster fertilizer, so I may have had better results if I'd kept adding food to the soil. By now the spot is probably in desperate need of rotation.
Time to move the strawberry plants!
With shovel in hand we embark on our quest to find a more protected, and therefore fruitful location for these strawberries. Choices, options, decisions.
In a previous house I grew strawberries in a raised bed. For several years that bed was productive and fairly pest free. Which can probably be attributed to the tall redwood plank walls of the bed, the surrounding moat of deep gravel, the copper strips nailed around the perimeter... oh, and the bird netting (which really worked well to foil the snails btw). The strawberry patch at this house is not nearly so grand. At the time I put it in I was feeling "thrifty", i.e. cheap, and just wanted to get the plants in before the rains ended. So I dug up the sod, mixed in some compost, built up some mounds, planted and threw a wire edging around the whole thing. Strangely, although the little mini fence did keep my kids from stomping over the new plants, it did absolutely nothing to deter the slugs and snails once they finally found the patch.
I am still feeling rather thrifty, so a new raised bed is not going to happen. How about using some of these containers laying about? Good plan, oh lord! There's a half barrel with a meadow sage in the center which last year was surrounded by calendula. This year, strawberries! (And if some of the seed from the old calendulas sprout, well those should make a fine companion to the berries.) There's also a large tin wash basin which in previous years has housed potatoes, beans and basil. Pulled over to a sunny spot and a fresh bag of potting soil will make that a fine home for more of the strawberries.
Okay, that's only a third of the strawberry plants relocated. Hmmm. There's some fallow space in the butterfly garden where the perennials I planted didn't really take off. Hopefully butterflies like strawberries, because they have some now! Mara, 3 years old, planted these ones. The girls really groove on the idea of the butterfly garden and I can almost always convince them to help plant or weed if it's "for the butterflies."
That's half of the plants taken care of. Where else? The herb garden in the front is already too crowded. The rest of the front yard is reserved for native plants. I don't tend or water in the back over by the redwoods and I'd really rather see that area go native also. The rest of the vegetable beds are spoken for.
Wait! There is that half a straw bail left over from last year's vegetable garden mulching. They are called straw-berries after all.
The idea with using straw bails as a planting medium is to hollow out a section of the top of the bail, fill it with soil (a mix of garden dirt and compost should do), then plant in the soil. Let's try it!
I dig out the middle of the bail, about six inches deep, leaving a several inch rim of undisturbed straw around the edge. Wow, this is not hard at all. The straw bail is soft and squishy, and chunks can be dug out very easily. I guess this is why you're supposed to soak new bails for several days before planting. I would definitely recommend the leaving the bail out in the rain over the winter method before using it as a planter. I bet this wouldn't work nearly as well with fresh, undecomposed bails.
Fill with soil, add some kelp meal, then plant the strawberries. The question of how close to plant them comes up. I've heard of the mat method and the mound method. There's not room here to do rows of mounds, and the bail itself is a mound after all. I'll plant them in mat formation, in staggered rows, about six inches between plants.
Tuck a bit of fresh hay around the plants as mulch.... Tah dah! A delightful new straw bail home for the strawberries.
But there are still some strawberry plants left over! I could go buy a few more straw bails... Nah, my vacuum has some mysterious problem that the repair guy hasn't figured out yet and I don't want my SUV to smell like hay indefinitely. Looks like my gardener friends will be getting strawberry plants in little pots for Ostara presents.
By next year this straw bail will probably be too soggy and decomposed to use, but will make lovely compost fodder. And I bet the strawberry plants will pull right out no trouble, and no bending and digging. I'm liking this method! I'll have to plan for four straw bails just for strawberries next year, bought and sighted in the fall. Here's hoping for a luscious harvest!
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