Growing Strawberries in a Raised Bed

Raised beds are often used to grow vegetables, herbs and smaller fruiting plants. Raised beds help soil health by improving organic matter content and the moisture retention of the soil. Because of this growing strawberries in a raised bed makes a lot of sense, strawberries need healthy soil and cannot handle a lot of competition from other plants. Additionally raised beds are easier to protect from pests that plague strawberries such as birds, snails and many of the hundreds of pests that find strawberries as tasty as humans do. Constructing your raised bed specifically for strawberries means considering a few things about the strawberry plant including most importantly is relatively shallow root system. This means you should make your raised beds more wide, and long with only about 6 inches of depth. This will reduce the amount of material you use to build your bed and maximize the planting space you have for your berries. Secondly you should consider driving posts at the corners of your bed so you can hang bird netting to protect your plants from small mammals like mice as well as birds. One of the hardest parts of growing strawberries is planting enough plants and then protecting the berries from all of the things that want to eat them. In order to generate a good crop you should fill your raised bed with a mixture of compost and garden soil. Also to improve drainage in your bed you should line the bottom with stones, or sand if your soil tends to drain poorly. Installing automatic water makes a huge difference, it ensures that your plants get water consistently and never suffer at the hands of potential forgetfulness. Finally automatic water makes the process of growing your berries a whole lot easier, it is definitely worth the time in the beginning to install a system so that you don't have to water during the rest of the season. You can plant strawberries from seed or buy a flat of plants from your local nursery. If you choose to use seeds sow your seeds according to the package but be sure not to bury the small seeds too deeply; putting too much soil on top of your seeds will hurt their chances and speed of germination. If you get plants from your local nursery space your plants out at least 6 inches away from each other, and bear in mind they will fill out or even spawn new entire new plants with runners. If its early in the season you can plant your strawberries far apart and let them fill in to save money on how many plants you have to buy. Lastly it is important to plant your strawberries as soon as the last frost has past to maximize their growing season and wise to consider start your plants inside if your season is relatively short.