Yum! I LOVE strawberries and use them as groundcover!

I LOVE strawberries and there is nothing like a strawberry fresh from the garden - I picked my first bowl of strawberries today - a variety called Hood that is just delicious. I have cut off the runners from my main bed and transplanted them around the rest of the garden as ground cover and they are all producing like crazy!

I have found the following tips helpful:
- New plants bear the most and biggest fruit -
- Keep your beds well watered and weeded after fruiting for good fruiting next year
- Apply 1-2 inches of compost or fine garden mulch that contains compost after fruiting to encourage growth for next year
- Cut off the runners and move them to other parts of your garden or give them away to friends and family
- Keep them picked when they ripen to keep production going
- Wash them right before you eat them and...

Enjoy! Berries of all kinds are high in antioxidants and very low in calories, and usually expensive in the stores, so they are a great choice to grow in even a small garden!