So we planted strawberries last year, and they've performed very well for us. Not surprising, strawberries doing well in Ventura county right? Thing is, we've never been able to eat a single one. The snails and woodlice (yeah 'rolly polies'!) are munching on them so much, that by the time they are ripe, they look like swiss cheese. When I do find the odd one untouched by bugs, it's been mushed up by some yeast or fungus from sitting on the bare ground.
These partially bug eaten berries have made for almost a years worth of great snacks for the chickens, but I STILL want some berries.
Here's what we've done. First we ordered 50 bare root mara de bois strawberries and we decided to plant them several different ways to find out what works best.
Planting 1- In a large raised bed with lots of composted wood shavings from the chicken coop (poop included) and everything I clean out of the rabbit cages (poop, shavings, urine, and lots of wasted timothy hay). It may sound gross, but I've read that rabbit manure is one of the few that's not too nitrogenous to use fresh. I have planted some melons in the same bed, since I figure it should take the berries awhile to really take off. I'll trim vines though, or just guide them away from the strawberries since I want them to take it over after the melons are gone.
Planting 2- As a control for the composted chicken/rabbit manure & shavings experiment, I've plopped a couple of them into another raised bed with my Armenian cucumbers. They are all growing on store bought container soil. Nothing fancy, just want to see if they like the manure better or if it's really all the same. Both raised beds are very close together, so sun should be the same.
Planting 3- Individual pots, hung with twine over an old 2x4. These should definitely keep the bugs off, don't know if there will be enough room for their roots. I used the bagged soil here as well, and I add compost to the top occasionally.
Planting 4- I took an old chicken feed bag- made of a plastic woven mesh- and filled it with compost and bagged soil. I laid it on the ground and cut 6 x's into the top, to plant the bare root plants into. I figure this will probably be much like the plastic mulch that the commercial growers use locally on their rows, with the added bonus that I'm recycling. I had refused from the outset to buy that plastic mulch, even though I can see it's ideal for keeping the berries off the soil where they rot.
Planting 5- same as 4 except the feed bag has been additionally lined on both sides with cardboard and then hung up on one of our swings. Because this one is hung, I get to plant both sides. I planted one side with a commercial variety I found at the gardening store (can't remember the name), and mara de bois in the other.
Planting 6- This was not planned, but I received a gift card for a local gardening store, and when I went to spend it, I found a great big old strawberry pot for $17. This one has 12 slots for berries and we filled them, (french thyme on the top) though it looks like about half of the little plants are already not doing well. I suspect the drainage is a little slower through all that bagged soil than strawberries want. Maybe if I had mixed it with sand first I'd have been better off. The ones dying are mostly on the bottom row. Isn't it always the most expensive method that works the least?
Pictures in the order I wrote about them, except the last picture should actually be first..
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