How to... grow strawberries (even with no garden!)

The delicious summer fruit tastes even better when it's fresh from your own patch...

Strawberries are one of summer's great treats, and if you plant some runners in March or April, your plants will produce delicious sweet, juicy homegrown fruit this year. Here's how...

Strawberry pots
Choose as big a strawberry pot as you can find, as small ones dry out quickly. Fill your pot with compost, adding a slow-release general fertiliser to the mix, and then put a strawberry plant in each opening, watering them in well. Feed your pots monthly, and water generously, making sure every plant is in damp compost.

Hanging baskets
Plant them in the same way as you would a strawberry pot, using a hanging basket liner, and push your plants through the slots underneath.

In the ground
Dig over an area of soil in a warm, sunny spot, clearing weeds and large stones, then add a generous quantity of compost or well-rotted manure and a sprinkling of slow-release general fertiliser. Plant strawberry plants in slightly raised rows (to encourage water to run off), roughly 50cm apart. Straw is a good way to keep your strawberry fruit off the ground, but it shouldn't be spread out until May, just before the fruit starts to develop. Alternatively, specialist strawberry mats, available from garden centres will do the job.

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