How do you prepare strawberry beds for the winter? Do you cut off all the foliage before you cover them with straw?
Removing healthy foliage isn't necessary and in most situations should be avoided since next year's flower buds have already formed on your strawberry plants. Removing the leaves could inadvertently cause damage to those buds and reduce the amount of fruit you can expect in next year's harvest. The exception, of course, is if any of those leaves are showing signs of disease. If that’s the case, removing them before throwing down any mulch is probably a good idea.
The only thing you really need to do to prepare your strawberry beds for winter is to properly mulch them. Although strawberry plants are quite hardy, fluctuations in temperature can cause their shallow roots to heave up out of the soil. In addition, the crowns of strawberries can be damaged over the winter by desiccation and their flower buds are susceptible to damage when temperatures drop below 9°C.
At this time of year, when it seems like a thousand garden chores need to be done, it's nice to know that it's still too early to apply mulch to your strawberry plants. Strawberries need to be exposed to cold weather late in the year in order to trigger dormancy. Mulching prior to dormancy can result in crown rot, which is often fatal to strawberry plants. It can also attract rodents looking for a nice warm home for the winter. For those reasons, you should wait until late-November or early-December to apply your mulch.
As for what that mulch should be, you can use straw, hay, chopped corn stalks, bark chips or pine needles. Deciduous leaves are not usually used to mulch strawberry plants since they tend to form a thick, damp mat that can smother the plants. If you have an abundance of leaves and are determined to use them for this purpose, you can run them through a shredder or to push your lawn mower over them a few times to cut them down to a more manageable size.
To be effective, the mulch will need to be three to five inches deep. If it's applied in a windy area, it should be covered with boards, fencing or chicken wire, so that it remains where you put it for the whole of the winter.
If you have any questions or comments, please send them to me at vanessa@gardenmuse.ca.
