Strawberries taste of summer, but at Bent Løschenkohl they are the taste of spring. It only takes a few old strawberry plants, plant boxes and ants.

 

Written by Nanna Stærmose 

Edited by Louise Curly 

Strawberries are the taste of an English summer, but if you can’t wait that long it’s possible, with the help of your greenhouse, to have an earlier crop.

Here’s how to do it.

In late winter dig up several plants from your strawberry beds and pot them up into containers – use a John Innes No 2 compost.

Snip off any old, dead leaves and runners. The warmth of the greenhouse will encourage a fresh crop of bright green leaves to appear.

Give the plants a good water and place in a bright spot.

To avoid slugs and snails you could try hanging strawberry containers from the roof of your greenhouse. These images are of hanging wooden troughs but hanging baskets would work too. Just make sure the frame of your greenhouse can support the weight, especially when the compost is wet.

Strawberry flowers are pollinated by bees but this won’t be possible for indoor grown plants, so instead use an artist’s paintbrush to carefully hand pollinate the flowers. Using the brush gently tickle the yellow centres of each flower every day and this will spread pollen between the plants.

Once flowers appear feed with a dilute tomato or comfrey fertiliser every week.

When the plants have finished cropping they need to be planted outside. Forcing them to produce fruit earlier than normal will have exhausted the plants, so it’s best not to use these same plants for forcing again next year. Instead give them a year or so in the garden to recover.