strawberry plants (flower, lawn, growing, manure)

[silver163]

Hello,

Are strawberry plants considered invasive?

[Va-Cat]

they can be extremely invasive. I learned the hard way to put mine in pots on the patio. Strawberry, mint and dillweed are 3 plants that I wish I had never thought to put in my garden.

[Debsi]

I have an area where nothing ever grows well.. so it's been ugly and covered with weeds for the last 2 years. This year I've been "hiding" it by putting potted plants around and that is working.. when I started working on it I noticed that one corner was being taken over by a spreading green plant. I figured it was a weed of some kind but left it alone because it was kind of pretty. Now I have little tiny red berries all over it! Is there anything that looks like strawberries but isn't, or are these going to be safe to eat? I certainly have never planted strawberries anywhere on my property. I guess they came from a bird's heiney.....

[phonelady61]

if i were you and your worried about invasive plants try the topsy turvy strawberry planted . good luck .

[TXNGL]

Originally Posted by Debsi

I have an area where nothing ever grows well.. so it's been ugly and covered with weeds for the last 2 years. This year I've been "hiding" it by putting potted plants around and that is working.. when I started working on it I noticed that one corner was being taken over by a spreading green plant. I figured it was a weed of some kind but left it alone because it was kind of pretty. Now I have little tiny red berries all over it! Is there anything that looks like strawberries but isn't, or are these going to be safe to eat? I certainly have never planted strawberries anywhere on my property. I guess they came from a bird's heiney.....

It's False Strawberry and it's an invasive weed. Hate it! I have a ton in my side yard and need to go out there and clean it up.

[Mac_Muz]

Sounds like wild strawberries to me, while we have them and false i also grow food quailty, of the same. The 3 shall never meet if i have my way, but the false already have, but i can ID them and tear them out. The false put out a yellow flower and no fruit at all. The leaf is quite different upon a short study.

Now the wild are another matter, since they are a real strawberry but bitter usually and very small. That would be hard to tell since the flower is white like the food types.

You can controll food type fairly easy if you want too. 4 years ago I bought 5 plants and gave then space and now have 6 rows, 2 of which are over crowded, and I want to sell at the farm fairs. The food quality won't take over unless you let them.

[TXNGL]

Originally Posted by Mac_Muz

Sounds like wild strawberries to me, while we have them and false i also grow food quailty, of the same. The 3 shall never meet if i have my way, but the false already have, but i can ID them and tear them out. The false put out a yellow flower and no fruit at all. The leaf is quite different upon a short study.

Now the wild are another matter, since they are a real strawberry but bitter usually and very small. That would be hard to tell since the flower is white like the food types.

You can controll food type fairly easy if you want too. 4 years ago I bought 5 plants and gave then space and now have 6 rows, 2 of which are over crowded, and I want to sell at the farm fairs. The food quality won't take over unless you let them.

I wonder if it's due to location, but my false strawberries put out the yellow flower (as opposed to white or pinkish of a real strawberry) and they do make a little fruit that looks like a tiny real strawberry. You could theoretically eat the fruit, but it tastes like cardboard.

Since you grow strawberries (the good kind), maybe you can help me with something. I've planted strawberry plants in pots this year, I've never grown them before. I have several June-bearing and a couple of ever-bearing. Everything is going fine, the plants are healthy and fruiting, but the small berries are turning red and maturing too quickly. I've read that you shouldn't count on anything great the first year, but I don't know if something else is wrong. Should this be happening? Thank you so much!

[Mac_Muz]

TXNGL, It might be the false strawberry never gets that far with me, before I pull ot out of the ground and cook it on a rock, then add it to my compost.

4 years ago here there was no soil to speak of. This place was clear cut at a pint in time I don't know, to become the town fair grounds and horse race track. It went of out business in 1930, some what before my time.

I cut what grass sods there was in the field with a bob cat to get soil that first year, and made a small garden. I compost anything I can my mitts on, which mainly is leaves, grass and beer grains from a local brewery. This is the first year there us any soil surplus, and not all of it is right, but it will be good enough for growing and next year it will be real soil in a 60 x 100 garden.

These type plants like cool feet, so pots may not be a great idea unless you can cover them from sun and heat. I mixed well broken horse manure in the soil I had the first year and in Fall I had apx 70 plants from 5. There wasn't much eatting that first time, but the plants spread from that 5 pretty fast.

Tx has a lot different weather than NH, as a guess, and I have only passed thru texas once. West to east, and in Oct of the year and to me it was hot.

Probably straw mulch these plants pretty heavy to keep there feet cool will help.

If you can build wood frames and create raised beds that may help. I use salt marsh straw all the time, and add corn leaves stripped off the stalk for winter mulch, since these plants see several feet of snow and way below 0, like -40 below.

Maybe for the last 2 weeks temps have begun their growing times, and many were just transpanted to 4 new beds, taking up a lot of room in the same 60 x 100, plus the same 2 rows totalling 6 rows apx 20 x 3.

I guess if you must use pots, use as big a pot as you can get. Make it have good drainage and maybe 8 inches of good soil with aged manure. The shooters run out around 14 to 18 inches with a baby plant on the end and these need to be placed in soils too, and get their roots in.

I would send you some, but I have 0 ideas on how to do that. We stilll have many left frozen from last year, and I guess we better get to eatting them, as before long there will be more.

Currently from the years past some straw seeds germinated, and I am trying to get enough space somewhere to grow that since around here they want 7 to 9 dollars a bail. The problem is watering, since the house pump is it, and I run 3 sprinklers set up on a cedar post around 7 feet high. Another problem is not enough soil for the straw this year anyway.

Last harvest we got about 1/2 of what was planted over all, and some total loss as we had 27 days of rain at 2" + for June and 18+ days of 1" of rain+ for July.

In one place in the garden I hand dug down arouns 18 inches and filled that area with dead leaves and now when that spot is real wet it floats.

Anyway I am running on probably too much.

If not and you would like a photobucket link to my world say so..

[TXNGL]

Thank you so much for your strawberry wisdom! Yes, Texas is very different weatherwise than NH (I lived in Boston for 8 years). I think I may need to shade the plants a little in the afternoon, so I'm going to move them. I'm out of space in my small garden and raised beds. I'm going to try the straw mulch, as well. Right now I have native cedar mulch (one of the best for my area) in there, probably not enough.

Oh, and I compost too. Going to have a great batch in about 2 weeks!

[Mac_Muz]

I guess more or less I make 12 cubic yards at a time, which starts with lawn grass, leaves of many kinds from trees here, and spent grains.

I just dump everything in a spot, and mix it all up with a bob cat. I add older compost to it, and a little soil when I can get any to spare. I need to get manuer from somewhere, but these days people want money for that too.