I just planted some patio strawberries and two weeks after the roots took hold and started growing, I fertilized them. My leaves and flowers are curling up and looks like they are dying! Any tips will be appreciated. How often do I need to water and how much sun do they need?

I'm pretty new to cultivating strawberries. What Varieties Should I Plant?

If your fruit is going to be sold in local markets two varieties stand out, Chandler for the more inland plantings and Seascape which can be planted in the warmer areas and yet will still produce fruit. Oso Grande would be another good choice for it's sweetness and size.

I'm about to order this years root stock. Last year, my plants didn't do as well as I hoped. How should I prepare my land this year?

Aack! Why are my leaves turning purple? (Well... not, "my" leaves, the strawberry plants leaves :) )

Something doesn't look right... the strawberries in my patch are splitting open, and some are really ugly! What went wrong?

I have about 4-5 dozen strawberry plants in my garden that now have huge healthy leaves. I have pinched off the early blossoms to promote a more hardy yield. I decide to do this until May 1st. At the beginning of the month I fertilized them. Now I have runners every where and not a signal blossom! Do I remove the runners or leave them? Will I have berries this year?

There are two things that you can do. One, allow the plant to runner freely and possibly later in the year have some fruit and a lot of ground cover. Or two, you could cut the runners all off and if the variety is a day neutral type it will hopefully set the plant into a fruiting cycle.

Well, now that I'm about to order, what's the minimum quantity that I can purchase?

How do you germinate strawberry seeds? Any special tricks?

Each seed on one berry can be night and day different than the next. There is no way of telling if the seed will even resemble the plant it was taken from or germinate at all. That is why strawberry nurseries grow and propagate plants a different way. We have the same nuclear stock that we go back to year after year. This stock we allow to runner in what is known as a heat chamber(temperatures above 100 degrees F for a period of four to six weeks before extraction{meristem} to kill any viruses present). We then take the daughter plants from the nuclear stock and meristem them. Meristeming is taking the smallest growing point out of the plant and growing it in a medium in a test tube. From there, when the plant is mature enough to transplant, we plant it in a sterile vermiculite and allow it to mature even more in a mist chamber. Then it goes into our screen houses. This plant will then runner having as many as 1000 daughter plant per one plant(depending on variety). These are the plants that are increased once more for commercial sales and for our own planting stock.

Strawberry plants are a very complex beast when you get right down to it. If you are doing anything but just seeing what you might get if one of your seeds do germinate, I would recommend getting your plants from a certified grower of strawberry plants.

I read your FAQ, but I have a question that still isn't answered! I demand satisfaction!