Crops & Breeds › Soft Fruit Plants
🍓 Strawberry
Soft Fruit Plants · growing reference
| To first harvest | 120 days – 330 days, by type |
|---|---|
| Spacing | 12″ in the row × 36″ between rows |
| Planted as | crown |
| Water | ~1–1.5 in a week |
When to plant
In USDA zone 6, for example: Plant around Mar 18 — as soon as the ground can be worked.
| Spring | |
|---|---|
| Zone 3 | Apr 17 |
| Zone 4 | Apr 9 |
| Zone 5 | Mar 29 |
| Zone 6 | Mar 18 |
| Zone 7 | Mar 4 |
| Zone 8 | Feb 15 |
| Zone 9 | Jan 23 |
Dates are the typical window for each zone's average frost dates — your own last frost can differ by a couple of weeks. Zone 10 and warmer is effectively frost-free: plant to the season, not the frost. Southern Hemisphere: shift six months.
Strawberry Types
- June-bearing · 330 days · 0.5–1.5 lbs/plant — One big early-summer crop, heavy runnering. Pinch the first year's flowers off and get a real crop the next June.
- Everbearing · 120 days · 0.5–1 lbs/plant — Two flushes, early summer and autumn — fewer runners, good in a small permanent bed.
- Day-neutral · 120 days · 0.8–1.5 lbs/plant — Albion, Seascape — ignores daylength and picks all season. The modern commercial berry, often grown as an annual.
- Alpine · 150 days · 0.1–0.2 lbs/plant — F. vesca — tiny intense fruit, grown from seed, no runners at all. An edging plant that picks all summer.
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