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Winter strawberries, then blueberries

Growing Strawberries in the Florida Home Garden calls Florida the winter strawberry capital of the world, and it grows them as an annual crop rather than a perennial. Blueberries are a second crop on a different calendar, a different soil pH, and a different bed.

Temperatures between 50°F and 80°F and day lengths 14 hours or less are required for the development of flowers and fruit on most strawberry varieties.

Why winter, and why annual

That quote is the whole reason the Florida calendar is upside down. North of here those conditions show up briefly in late summer and again in spring. On the Florida peninsula they hold through much of fall, winter, and spring. So single-crown plants go in from late September to early November, flowering and fruit start in November, and the crop runs into April or May. It does not run steadily. The home-garden strawberry guide says fruit comes in two or three cycles and can be interrupted by freezing weather.

The plants come out at the end of it. Best quality fruit comes from relatively young plants carrying no more than four or five branch crowns, so gardeners pull them after fruiting and set new ones the following fall. The home-garden strawberry guide suggests three varieties for the home garden: Camarosa, Florida Brilliance, and Sweet Sensation Florida127. Camarosa has been the most productive in North Florida. Florida Brilliance and Florida127 produce more early in the season and have been the most productive commercially in Central Florida. Expect 1 to 2 pints per plant across the season.

Bed, container, or both

The home-garden strawberry guide recommends for home gardens the same thing commercial growers do: double rows on soil mounded into raised beds. Raised beds drain, which means roots keep enough oxygen through heavy rain, and they make picking easier on your back. Site for at least 8 hours of direct sun. If you cannot get that, take a spot that is sunny in the morning and early afternoon. Soil should be well drained and slightly acidic, pH 5.5 to 6.5.

Containers are explicitly allowed. The home-garden strawberry guide lists planter boxes, strawberry pots, and barrels alongside beds. That is the version of this crop that fits a patio and moves indoors on a bad night.

How to set a bed

1. Work 2 pounds of 10-5-10 garden fertilizer with micronutrients, including boron, into every 10 feet of row before planting. About half the nitrogen should be slow release, meaning a sulfur or resin coated material.
2. Rake a quarter of that fertilizer evenly across the top of the bed. Band the rest about an inch deep down the middle.
3. Lay drip tape emitter side up in a trench 2 to 3 inches deep down the center, then cover it with an inch or two of soil.
4. Cover the bed with black polyethylene sheeting, 1 to 1.5 mils thick. The home-garden strawberry guide says it controls weeds and keeps fruit cleaner than bare soil. Clear plastic is not recommended because it does not control weeds.
5. Set transplants through slits in the plastic. Do not bury the crown and do not leave roots exposed.

Bare-root transplants with leaves on them yield more early fruit, but they need frequent sprinkler irrigation from roughly 10 a.m. To 5 p.m. For the first one to two weeks. Plug transplants keep their root ball intact and need very little. After establishment, drip or soaker at low pressure, around 10 psi for half an hour to an hour, moistens a bed. Water once a week early in the season, two or three times later when plants are bigger and the weather is warmer.

Freeze nights

Strawberry flowers and fruit are damaged below 32°F. Leaves and crowns that have acclimated to cool fall and winter weather usually take no permanent damage unless the air hits the low 20s. The home-garden strawberry guide's practical answer for a gardener is a cover: sheets, blankets, or frost cloth, put on during the afternoon before an expected freeze and anchored down on all sides so wind cannot lift it. Get this. A small tunnel of PVC hoops under clear plastic works too, with sides you raise and lower as the air warms.

Pests

The home-garden strawberry guide says the first key is starting with healthy transplants, free of root diseases, spider mites, and nematodes, from a reputable nursery. A gardener who starts with infested plants is fighting uphill all season.

Spider mites are the more persistent problem in Florida, more so than insects. Start checking in early December for leaves with small patches of yellow, pin prick sized stipples showing through the upper surface, and use a hand lens to see the mites on the underside. If 5 percent or more of the leaflets you check have them, treat with a neem product, insecticidal soap, or mineral oil, twice, spaced 5 to 7 days apart. Early in the season, October and November, caterpillars feed on crowns, leaves, and young flowers, and Bacillus thuringiensis or a neem extract with azadirachtin usually handles the small ones. Hand-picking works in a small planting. The home-garden strawberry guide warns off bifenthrin where possible: pyrethroids damage beneficial insects and mites, and can make thrips worse, and chilli thrips are already resistant to it. Later in the season aphids and flower thrips work developing fruit, and the beneficials in a home garden, including lacewings, ladybird beetles, and minute pirate bugs, often handle it if you wait. Powdery mildew comes off with several sulfur applications, applied under 80°F so the foliage does not burn.

Two rotation rules. Do not plant strawberries in the same spot year after year, because parasitic nematodes and soil-borne pathogens build up; move to ground that has not grown strawberries for two or three years. And do not follow tomatoes, potatoes, or eggplant, which share Verticillium wilt. Birds, mainly robins and cedar waxwings, are excluded from a small planting with bird netting.

When to pick

A strawberry is ready when three quarters of its surface is red. It starts to deteriorate soon after it goes fully red, so pick every two to four days rather than waiting for a big harvest. Hold the fruit between thumb and forefingers and snap it off the pedicel by twisting your forearm and wrist. Ripe berries bruise easily. Freeze what you are not eating, or refrigerate in a moisture-proof container so they do not dry out. A huller takes the calyx out without taking half the berry with it. Get this.

The blueberry half

Different plant, different rules. Blueberry Gardener's Guide says the best planting window in Florida is mid-December to mid-February, and that only low-chill cultivars work here. Southern highbush is the type for the peninsula, adapted from Alachua and Putnam counties south to Hendry County; rabbiteye wants winters as cold as or colder than Ocala's. Blueberries need soil pH 4.0 to 5.5, which is well below what strawberries want, and southern highbush is not recommended for soils under 3 percent organic matter without amendment. Milled pine bark is the usual fix, as a soil amendment and as mulch. They also need at least 18 inches of well-drained soil profile, because more than a few days of saturated soil invites Phytophthora root rot. The blueberry gardener's guide notes containers are a real option for home gardeners, and that southern highbush is the better choice for a pot than a rabbiteye that can reach 12 to 15 feet.

Questions

Sources

1. Growing Strawberries in the Florida Home Garden (HS403), UF/IFAS
2. Strawberry Production (CV134), UF/IFAS
3. Blueberry Gardener's Guide (CIR1192/MG359), UF/IFAS

Winter fruit versus the July clamshell, or the shop for hullers and cloth.