Bought as plugs from Natural Gardening Co. Fall 2017
After finally having strawberry success with the Alpine Strawberries, I decided to give conventional strawberries one last shot. However I decided to switch it up a little. Instead of buy bareroot strawberries which come in Jan/Feb or the flats of strawberries from Home Depot which are available in Feb/March (both strategies lead to doomed strawberries that don't have time to get established in Phoenix), I decided to get strawberry plugs. Here is why I thought this would be a superior option:
-- The strawberries would have full root systems actively growing (unlike bareroot)
-- The strawberries could be planted in the fall (unlike flats from the nursery) and grow all fall / winter
Well, it seems to have worked so far, because I have been enjoying strawberries off these plants since early March. They grew all fall / winter except January when they finally took a pause.
The other 'trick' I am trying is growing them underneath my figs and jujubes. The idea here is to plant them under something deciduous. The trees lose their leaves in Nov/Dec, at which point the strawberries get full sun. The trees leaf out again in March but don't get fully leafed out until April. So March/April the strawberries will get plenty of sun and make fruit and then by April they will be in the shade and can ride out the late spring and summer temperatures under the canopy.
I will post an update in summer 2018 to see how these do
The flavor of these strawberries are good. Nothing exceptional, but not bland either. Just a medium sized comparable grocery store strawberry. But the fact that it is fresh from the garden makes all the difference.
Elan strawberry plants planted under figs and jujubes
3 tiny Mingonettes compared to 1 Elan (similar size to store bought)
