How To Overwinter Potted Strawberry Plants : Undoubtedly, there’s no better feeling than harvesting juicy red strawberries from your raised bed or garden each year. However, is there a method to store potted strawberry plants for the upcoming season. luckily, fortune is on your side! It’s not only feasible, but also surprisingly simple, to keep your potted strawberry plants alive during the harsh, lengthy winters.
How To Overwinter Potted Strawberry Plants
Compared to store-bought berries, the flavour profile of freshly cultivated strawberries is significantly sweeter and more flavourful. However, not everyone has a large enough yard or room to dedicate to a raised bed or even a small strawberry patch.
A Quick Background About Strawberry Plants
Strawberries are one of the easiest perennials. They can bear fruit for years after one planting.
Mature plants produce runners as clones after fruiting. These runners can be removed and planted to make new plants. If left on the plant, they can organically connect to the soil to grow your strawberry patch.
Two prominent strawberry varieties are June Bearing and Everbearing. Fall-blooming June strawberries have buds. The following spring, around June, these buds produce fruit, hence their name.
Everbearing fruit generates summer buds that ripen in fall and fall buds that ripen in spring. Two harvests are typical for everbearing types.
Should You Prune To Overwinter Potted Strawberry Plants?
Pruning strawberry plants keeps them neat and energised, but avoid doing it in the fall. Fall pruning, like certain bushes and shrubs, can cause more harm than benefit.
As noted, strawberry plants start budding in October. Late-season pruning eliminates all new growth. Spring fruit production decreases.
Fall pruning leaves plants more vulnerable to harsh winter conditions. This makes your plants prone to weather damage, especially potted ones.
Strawberry plants should not be cut in the fall for winterization. Instead, prune immediately after plants cease fruiting in early or late summer. Variety affects timing. Dead foliage can be removed.
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How To Overwinter Potted Strawberry Plants
You must take a few basic precautions in fall to keep your strawberry plants happy and healthy. Potted plants are the subject of these tips. For in-ground plant winterization details.
Non-soil-grown plants have more exposed leaves and roots to lower temperatures. Cold air can travel around thin pots, harming sensitive roots.
The following tips will keep potted plants cool enough to dormancy and prepare for a productive spring growing season. It also prevents freezes that kill roots and foliage.
Burying Plants In The Ground – Overwinter Potted Strawberry Plants
Directly burying potted strawberry plants is one of the finest ways to safeguard them.
This lets the ground protect you most in winter. It’s also ideal for those who’ve cleared away their summer garden or raised beds and have additional space.
You can leave strawberries in their planter and “plant” them in the ground. This works better with plastic containers, not clay or terra cotta. Hard freezes or repeated freezing and thawing can shatter and break these sorts.
Dig a hole one inch larger and deeper than your container to plant it. Place strawberries and container in ground. Keep the pot’s top level with the soil. Fill container gaps with soil.
Relocate Containers and Pots – Overwinter Potted Strawberry Plants
Relocation is a good alternative to in-ground planting.
This doesn’t mean taking your plants to the South (though that’s good). It doesn’t imply you should bring your plants inside to remain warm. Strawberry plants require colder temperatures to dormancy.
However, you can transfer potted plants to unheated areas of your property for winter protection. Unheated sheds or barns work well for this. Even an unheated garage works.
Even placing plants against your property to avoid wind can assist. Keep some of the below Additional Precautions in mind if not moving plants into a structure.
Tips On Watering – Overwinter Potted Strawberry Plants
Keep in mind that while strawberry plants do go dormant in the winter, they will still need water in order to survive. This is especially true for pots or container plants that you have moved to indoor locations or where you planted the containers directly in the soil.
Those that have been transplanted to the soil without their container should receive sufficient watering through rainfall and snow melt. The addition of mulch will also help them to retain moisture as well.
