Anyone for strawberries?

There may be no succulent berries left to pick and eat, but work done now can ensure that next year’s crop is every bit as good as this year’s – or better.

It’s clean-up time for the strawberry bed. Pick and compost any dead and dying foliage and pull up any unwanted runners. Then give the whole bed a thorough weeding; not only will everything take on a tidy look but there should be fewer disease and pest problems next year.

Old plants (that used to be any which had fruited for three seasons, but that rule seems to have been relaxed a little) should be dug up and thrown into the compost bin to make way for their young, healthy and handsome replacements.

The latter are often planted in spring, left to grow and flower for a year, and only harvested for fruit in their second year. This allows the plants to build up their strength to become prolific croppers.

However, some gardeners swear that planting in autumn is best – the new plants can build up a decent root system before winter sets in. The downside is that, when there are brass monkeys in abundance outdoors, it’s easier to stay indoors and let the baby plants fend for themselves. Any which go short of water in this vital growing time will be worse than useless next year, so if you plant in October, be prepared to spend more time administering TLC than you would if you planted in April.

And where do all these new plants come from? If you are happy with the variety you’re growing, propagate replacements. It’s simple and almost 100 per cent successful.

Choose a healthy runner and pin it down into a small plant pot filled with decent compost. Water it and leave it to grow a decent root system.

When it has, cut it from its parent plant. Pop it into a plant pot and put it somewhere safe until next spring when, with the soil warming up, it should be safe to plant it out in its permanent home.

Propagating strawberries costs nothing but the price of the compost and a few minutes of your time – and you get a perfect replacement plant.