Strawberries 

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  Introduction – Strawberries are the widely grown fruit around the world. People cultivate them for gardening purpose, commercial purposes. The fruit is widely appreciated for its wide use like taste, sweetness, its juicy texture. Wide range of food products use them to make chocolates, perfume, candies etc.

 Content

1.          Introduction
2.          A complete guide on how to grow strawberries.
3.          Brief History
4.          How/When/Where to Grow Strawberries
5.          Manuring and Harvesting:
6.          Cultivation
7.          Hobby
8.          Pests
9.          Nutritional Facts
10.          Summery Table

Brief History – Strawberries were first introduced in in Rome for its medicinal use before 14^th century and later it was introduced in Europe. The entire strawberry plant was used to treat depressive illnesses. In 16^th century the strawberries were commercially grown in the gardens.

How/when/where to grow Strawberries – For domestic purpose they are very popular and rewarding plants. The best time to plant these plants is late summer or early/during spring. These plants can be grown in the full sunlight or the partial sun light with little sandy soil. At home we can grow them in pots or it can be grown in the growth bags or any improvised bags. They are very tuff plants and can survive extreme conditions but to yield fruit they need extra moisture if planted in the pots. The Fruit matures in midsummer where as some verities can mature early.

The best verities of the strawberries are listed below

1. Honeoye
2. Pegasus
3. Rhapsody
4. Symphony
5. Cambridge Favorite

The life span of a strawberry plant is considered as three years and after that is need to be remove and a new plant should be planted for the better yield.

The ideal temperature to grow strawberries lies between 60°F to 80°F i.e. 15°C to 27°C.

Sprouting seeds –  takes up to 2 weeks – you can check the video for you easiness.

If planted in January – it will bloom in April and yield in the month of May, if it is a faster yielding variety or by the month of  June.

Manuring and harvesting: – Strawberries are harvested with the caps on and even the half an inch of the stem left on it. Strawberries does not keep ripening once they are removed from the plants like other fruits. They are washed only before consuming.

Nitrogen fertilizer is needed at the beginning of the planting year. Later for the better harvest phosphorus and potash is added to them. These plants loves the pH form 5.5 to 6.5 in the soil therefore we do not use lime.

Cultivation: – Strawberries are cultivated widely according to their shape, color, size, speed of their growth etc. The flower of strawberry appears as a hermaphrodite which means both the male and female sexes are in it but it only acts as either male or female flower.  A single strawberry fruit possesses more than 200 seeds in average. For commercial purposes mostly it is propagated form the runners because it is the fastest way to multiply your plants. Seeds can be grown and number of plants can be achieved out of a single fruit but that takes long time to yield fruit.

Green house can produce few amount of fruits during the off seasons. They yield fruit during the month of June i.e.  early summer.

Hobby – Beside growing strawberries in commercial manner strawberries are grown as hobbies at home. People can collect the strawberries fruit form the grocery shop and they can just collect the seeds from the ripened fruit and can start their project.

Pests: Number of pests infects the strawberries. They might be moths, caterpillars, fruit flies, slugs, snails, etc. At home without using pesticides they can be removes in the following ways

Spray neem oil,

Salt spray

Citrus oil and cayenne pepper

Soap, orange peels

Eggs shell

Garlic spray

Nutrition facts: 100 grams of strawberry serving gives following nutrition value.

Energy –                                33 Kcal

Carbohydrate –                     7.6 g

Fat –                                      0.3 g

Protein –                               0.6 g

Vitamins –                             75 mg

Minerals –                            185mg

Water-                                  90.9 g

Summery table