Weeds in the strawberries

[countrygirl4513]

Hi all, just found you all at the sister site BYC. So thought I'd see what's new.
Does anybody have experience with strawberries? I'm trying to find something that will kill the weeds and not the vines. Of course things are dormant now, but come spring those aggravating weeds will spring up. Thanks in advance.

 

[Reinbeau]

Mulch is your friend. Use pine needles or ground up leaves and mulch between the plants heavily. I'm not an advocate of using chemicals to weed (especially on a food crop!), just pull the existing weeds and mulch, mulch, mulch!

 

[digitS']

Countrygirl, I don't have much experience growing strawberries but it would help to know what weeds you are having problems with. And yes, I'm with Ann on the value of mulch and especially pine needles to suppress them. The strawberries I've grown have been in beds small enuf to reach across & that's how I've gotten rid of the weeds.

Strawberries will produce in such a short time, you could keep them "on the run" from perennial weeds like quack grass. The 1st season not only won't the strawberries grow a whole lot but neither will the quack grass invade much. You can enjoy the fruit for years #2 & #3 and at the same time start another strawberry patch elsewhere. And after year #3, take out the old bed.

Now this requires foresight which I'm certainly lacking but it's common farming practice. You can think of your strawberryies' several square feet as a "field" and rotate your crop with new "fields" planted every other year. And, after all, you wont be able to leave a bed for very long anyway.

Just a thought . . .

Steve

 

[countrygirl4513]

I've got 2 rows about 150ft long. It's alot of onions, coffee weeds, bermuda, dandilions, clover. You name it I've got it.It's backbreaking work to weed that much strawberries. And I've not got the back for it anymore. This was our 2nd season with these, but because of the late killing frost not much production this season except for the weeds.I've tried to stay on top of it but they seem to over power me.

 

[Reinbeau]

I've got 2 rows about 150ft long. It's alot of onions, coffee weeds, bermuda, dandilions, clover. You name it I've got it.It's backbreaking work to weed that much strawberries. And I've not got the back for it anymore. This was our 2nd season with these, but because of the late killing frost not much production this season except for the weeds.I've tried to stay on top of it but they seem to over power me.

I would start over. I'd prepare a bed, transplant only strawberry plants into it (check the rootball of each plant and remove any of those damned onions, they are absolutely awful, I can't tell you how many I've pulled out of two of my clients' gardens) and mulch, as I said, with pine needles. Sounds like you left the ground bare between the plants in the first bed. On top of suppressing weeds, the mulch also protects the strawberries from splash from the ground, which helps to suppress disease, etc. Pointy pine needles deter slugs. All in all mulch is a win/win with strawberries.

 

[digitS']

Countrygirl, 2 rows about 150ft long certainly isnt "several square feet" - I can understand the difficulty in getting thru them. Is yours a large family of strawberry lovers?

Don't even recognize some of your weeds - "coffee weeds" - thought I misread that the first time. Out here in the Wild West we've got those dandelions and I can imagine the clover as black medic but, I suppose, even red or white clover would be difficult to deal with.

There are herbicides (he says while cringing). But, it looks like with so many broad-leafed weeds and grass, they may not be very effective. My experience with some herbicides is that they can be really hard on everything, also. You may go another year without much of a strawberry crop. Besides, I'm pretty sure that herbicides are applied in strawberry fields AFTER the harvest not early in the Spring. Don't know about that but I'm assuming.

There's a little pointed tool for uprooting dandelions especially. The user can remain standing. Basically, it is a sharp stick. Anyway, it is super easy to kill the weeds with long tap roots with that tool. The most trouble I have using it is staying awake . . .

Quack grass is really hard to smother under a mulch unless you cover a lot of ground. It will just "travel" a few feet and come up if there's a chance. But, between mulch and pulling, you can get it. If Bermuda grass has the same rhizomes/stolons - it may need to be an ongoing battle.

Can you enlist some help? Or start over with fresh ground and a good mulch?

Steve