A Guide to Soft Fruit Growing - The Strawberry

By E. Gilbert

This antiquarian book comprises a concise and accessible guide to growing strawberries, with information on planting, manuring, pests, and more. This book will be of considerable utility to novice fruit growers with an interest in growing strawberries, and it would make for a great addition to collections of allied literature. Although old, the information of contained in this guide is timeless, making it both a useful, practical guide, and an appealing volume for collectors of vintage literature. The chapters include: 'Introduction to Fruit Growing', 'Strawberries', 'Summer-Fruiting Strawberries', 'Soils', 'Preparation of the Bed', 'Buying Healthy Plants', 'Planting', 'Mulching and Manuring', 'Planting Distances', 'Cultivar', 'Perpetual-Fruiting (Remontant or Ever-Bearing) Strawberries', etcetera. We are republishing this antiquarian volume now in an affordable, modern edition - complete with a new prefatory introduction on fruit growing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Apr 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781473383906

Book preview

Strawberries

The two great advantages of strawberries are that they need so little space and give such quick returns. With reasonable soil and healthy plants there is no reason why fine crops of strawberries should not be picked within nine months of planting. No other hardy fruit can match this for speed of fruiting.

Although wild strawberries abound in Britain, the fine cultivars (varieties) we know today have largely resulted from crosses made between two American species introduced into Europe in the eighteenth century, Fragaria virginiana, and its variety illoensis, from North America, and Fragaria chiloensis from Chile. The first two have a small aromatic fruit, while the latter is much larger with a deep-red colouring.

Summer-fruiting Strawberries

In a warm, early season it is quite possible to pick ripe strawberries in the latter half of May, and with the help of cloches two to three weeks earlier still. The introduction of new strawberries is now a deliberate and controlled operation, largely in the hands of the research stations, with the commercial growers’ requirements primarily in mind. And although, by virtue of this, his choice of varieties is more limited, the gardener at least has access – though not always easy access – to the same healthy certified stock for gardens as the commercial grower. The chief difficulty sometimes met with is that of finding a source willing to sell small quantities of runners.

In the case of perpetual-fruiting strawberries and, to a lesser extent, alpine strawberries the position is rather different, as will be seen later.

Frost

As it is a small plant, growing only a few inches above soil level, the flowers of the strawberry are unfortunately very prone to frost damage. Since the main flush of blossom occurs in early to mid-May, there is always a risk of frost damage. The flowers are very susceptible to frost and soon show ‘black eyes’ when a sharp night has taken its toll. Ways of combating frost are discussed on p. 15, but for the average-sized strawberry bed it should not be difficult to cover at least some of the plants on colder nights. It is surprising what protection sheets of newspaper can give, or straw lightly spread over the plants. The cultivars themselves vary