Growing Strawberries?

[jjsooner73]

Dumb question here. I bought some strawberry plants last weekend (luckily I didn't plant them yet because it got COLD here this week).
Once I plant them, can I expect them to bear fruit this year, or will it take a year?
thanks!

[ebobbitt]

You should have fruit this year. Good luck!

[jjsooner73]

YAY!!! Thanks!

[kgraham]

The plant will produce strawberries this year, but its recommended to not allow the plant to bear fruit the first year (by picking off the blossoms) :( Its supposed to make the plant stronger by not allowing it to put energy into fruit production. Personally, I haven't followed this advice in the past (just can't bring myself to do it!), but I thought you might want to know...

[ebobbitt]

Do you know anything about blueberries? I was thinking about ordering dwarf plants to grow on my deck (if I put them in the yard the deer will eat them) and was wondering if they would have fruit the first year. TIA

[bookworm]

I've also read that you should pull off the first few strawberries to help the next bunch shape like a strawberry. I didn't do this when I planted a strawberry plant and the strawberries grew long and narrow.

My parents have blueberry bushes and have had a big problem with birds eating all the blueberries when they ripen. But I don't know anything about the dwarf variety.

[jjsooner73]

Hmmm. Well, I won't be able to resist if there's a chance I can have strawberries this year!
Maybe I'll do a small sample experiment. I'll not let ONE plant produce fruit, and let the others bloom away, and see how they all do next year!
:)

[kgraham]

ebobbitt-
Funny you should ask about blueberries! I went to a seminar a couple weeks ago about growing blueberries in my area! Plants will produce berries the same year you plant them, but the same thing goes as for strawberries - you should pick off the blossoms to encourage root development...actually, now that I think about it, the master gardener running the seminar said that if you pull off most of the blossoms and leave a few so you can try them, it would be ok - maybe that would work for the strawberries, too. I can't remember if bare root plants will bear the first year, though.

Here is a link to the research project that was done by Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County. Some of the info will probably not be useful because you're in a different area, but maybe there will be something you can use

http://www.mastergardeners.org/picks/bluebery.html