New Strawberry Bed

[glallotments]

I want to set up a new strawberry bed and am trying to decide whether or not to grow the plants through a weed suppressant material.

I have always mulched with straw in the past but the beds do become very weedy and many weeds are impossible to remove without disturbing the strawberry plants.

I have also read that strawberries ripen quicker if a black weed suppressant is used but my concern is does the material harbour slugs and also is it detrimental in any way to the plants? Do weeds just grow up through the planting hole right alongside the plants? Anyone any experience of growing strawberries in this way?

Also I want to grow about four varieties to give longer cropping. At least one will be an everbearing variety. I may pass on an early variety as the frost often spoils the flowers. Anyone any super varieties to share?

[Beryl]

A neighbour of mine on the plot always grows her strawberries through the black weed supressant. I don't really think she has had any better crops than me and we do grow the same variety.

Slugs and snails under any covering are always a problem but if your ground is well prepared of perennial weeds they shouldn't present any problems.

Another trial and error I think.

Beryl.

[Geoff]

We grow Symphony that Ken Muir describes as "a good variety for the north producing medium-large berries with a very good flavour". We have found it exactly that. We grow them in bare ground that is hand weeded. It is described as Late Summer but we covered some with a polycloche and started eating them the week before Wimbledon (I forget the date) and have had a large crop, still coming.