This month we brought in the second year alpine strawberry plants into the greenhouse, as I was concerned about the potential cold. It was a wise move I feel. Normally we let our plants winter over outside – short freezes are fine, and build hardier plants. However…..extended ones can be hard on plants sitting in smaller containers. If in the ground, they do just fine however. They may lose leaves, but the roots come back quickly in Spring.
During the start of the February snow storms, we quickly brought all the plants in, and settled them in on the ground, most of them with a dusting of snow already on the leaves.
With the snow storms done, and the plants enjoying the toast warm temps a bit too much (free loaders…..) I upsized a number of the plants into gallon size containers this past weekend.
Two of the varieties (Yellow Wonder and Regina) are putting on early blooms in the greenhouse.
This is a great thing. Some of the plants are going to be huge by late spring, and will be heavy fruiting.
Being second year plants, they will start putting on berries in spring, and continue to mid summer. Once the heat gets bad, they will stop till late summer, then start back up, and put on berries till first frost.
When in the ground, this is how the plants appear in (melting) snow. The beds are 6 feet long, by 4 feet wide. As you can see, the plants in the ground fare better than those in (in even larger) pots. They lose a lot less leaves.
The plants will be ready for sale in late spring, and I highly suggest you find a sunny spot in the ground. If you have deer, do put a wire cage around them. We will have 7 varieties for sale. Prices will vary on the container they are in, but will be $10 to $20 each.
- Yellow Wonder
- White Soul
- Attilla
- Alexandria
- Regina
- Tresca
- Baron
~Sarah