How to Grow Strawberries in Five Easy Steps

Growing strawberries and starting your own strawberry garden is a fun and exciting project. Whether you want to use the strawberries for smoothies or just eat them separately, it's great to have your own supply. If you are looking for new gardening DIY ideas, this could be the project for you. Whether you plan on growing strawberries indoors or in a raised bed in your outdoor garden, it is a straightforward process either way. You just need to make sure that you follow the right steps, and set your new strawberry plant up for success.

1) Find a Home for Your New Strawberry Plant: First off, you need to decide on a home for your strawberries, and where you want to grow them. If you plan to grow strawberry plants from seeds, you can use a small pot or even a cup to start. You can always transfer the plant once the strawberry seeds grow. When starting with a nursery strawberry plant, it is generally a good idea to transfer the plant and grow it in a planter. Nursery strawberry plants often come in small, plastic containers, and it is easy for a growing plant to get overcrowded in them. If you are planning to grow the strawberry plant outside, you can plant them in a raised garden bed, outdoor planters, or other places in your garden. When you transfer the plant, be careful to not damage its delicate roots. If you do end up transferring your new plant, be sure to water it well once it is placed into its new home, to help its roots grow and get established. You may want to consider adding in fertilizer or other kinds of plant food as needed too. You can use a trowel and other basic gardening tools to make the transferring process easier. For more inspiration on what tools you could use, check out this post. It covers a list of basic tools useful for common gardening DIY ideas.  

2) Decide on a Location to Grow Strawberries: After you have found a home for your strawberry plant, you need to then find a good spot to grow it that meets the basic strawberry plant growing conditions. When it comes to sunlight levels, strawberries generally grow better and flourish with a lot of sunlight. Proper levels of sunlight can cause strawberry plants to have bigger harvests and more of them. Low light settings can work too for more developed plants, but the plants might grow slower, depending on the location, since strawberries tend to prefer a lot of light. With low light setups, you might also get fewer or smaller strawberry harvests, since the strawberries may not grow as quickly. If you want to grow bigger strawberries, it is generally better to grow them outside during warm and rainy seasons, but you can still get consistent harvests by growing strawberries indoors.

3) Figure Out Your Strawberry Watering Schedule: Third, you have to figure out a watering schedule for the plant. Strawberries tend to thrive with more frequent watering, compared to other plants, and they generally like a lot of moisture. However, you still have to be careful to avoid overwatering. To keep the strawberry plant in optimal growing conditions, water until the top layer of soil is moist. Depending on the soil you use and other factors, the amount of watering needed can vary, but generally the goal is to soak through the first 2 - 5 inches of soil. If you are growing the strawberries in a pot, make sure the pot can properly drain excess water too, to prevent the plant roots from rotting. For outdoor strawberry plants, be sure to complement natural rainfall with extra watering during periods of drought. Depending on the area you live in, or the time of year, natural rainfall might not provide enough moisture for your outdoor strawberries. Consistent and proper watering is an essential part of strawberry care. If you experience any problems growing strawberries, it may be due to improper watering. Strawberries that are under-watered tend to dry and shrivel up, and they might stop producing new harvests, so be sure to establish a consistent watering schedule. 

4) Consider Adding Plant Protection: This next step can be skipped if you plan on growing strawberries indoors, and this step is mainly for protecting strawberry plants growing outdoors from local wildlife. While you might like strawberries yourself, so do many common kinds of animals and insects. The kind of protection that works best will depend on the local wildlife in your area. With this step, the goal is to add protection for your harvests. Mesh netting, for example, can be used to keep pests or birds away from your fresh strawberries. Instead of mesh netting, you can also try and make decoy strawberries to trick birds into leaving your strawberries alone. To do so, simply find a bunch of pebbles and paint them to look like strawberries. With any luck, birds will mistakenly peck the decoy strawberries and leave your harvests alone. In addition to birds, there are many kinds of bugs that might go after your harvests too. For other ideas and approaches on managing pests, check out this post.

5) Watch Your New Plant Grow: The last step is to sit back and watch your new strawberry plant grow. If you follow the above steps, your new plant will likely have no problem growing, and you should eventually start to get regular harvests. If you begin to notice that your strawberries are not growing well, you may need to mix in new fertilizer or try a new location to grow it. Watering is important for healthy strawberry growth too. Newer strawberry plants in particular can be sensitive to both overwatering and under-watering, but if given enough time your new plant will flourish and adapt to its new home, and you'll be left with plenty of strawberries for your next bowl of yogurt.