Can You Grow Strawberries Indoors? Tips, Tricks, and How-To Guide

Vivid, juicy, and full of heart-healthful anti-oxidants, strawberries are an all-close to sensory delight and a joy to grow for those with a inexperienced thumb. They’re also adaptable crops, equally comfortable in a pot on the kitchen counter as they are expanding in the wonderful outdoor.

If you’re searching for a lot more culinary vegetation to compliment your indoor herb garden, the dainty flowering and lively reds of strawberries can be a stunning addition to your area. No subject the place you dwell, an indoor setup will let you effortlessly keep a constant supply growing at any time of yr. Keep looking through to learn guidelines, tricks, and procedures to get started out on a productive indoor strawberry garden right now!

Can You Grow Strawberries Indoors? Tips, Tricks, and How-To Guide

Strawberry Growing Needs

  • Soil: Well-drained, sandy/loam, rich, slightly acidic/neutral
  • Sunlight: 6–8 hours of direct sunlight

Tools and Materials

  • Potting soil
  • Organic matter (humus, compost, peat moss)
  • Pots with drainage holes
  • Balanced control release (or “slow-release”) fertilizer
  • Strawberry seedlings or starters

How to Grow Strawberries Indoors

1. Choose Your Strawberry Plants

Can You Grow Strawberries Indoors? Tips, Tricks, and How-To Guide
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Just before commencing your indoor strawberry garden, you are going to need to have to make a decision what variety of strawberries you must plant. Strawberry versions tumble into a few types:

  • June-bearing: Plants yield one large harvest annually, generally around June
  • Ever-bearing: Plants yield two crops, one in early summer and one in late summer
  • Day-neutral: Plants that continuously produce from mid-June to late fall

When seeking for indoor strawberry vegetation, it is ideal to adhere to working day-neutral or ever-bearing kinds. They generate few runners, so they’re outstanding low-servicing choices for restricted indoor area, and the numerous harvests offer a far better yearly crop.

Working day-neutrals are some of the very best strawberries to grow indoors because they bear fruit at all moments of the 12 months and are far more adaptable to restricted daylight and artificial lighting. Relatively than ranging out, they expand in small clumps, best for setting into specific pots on a windowsill. They often create little fruit, so you can include a blend of June-bearing and ever-bearing types to maintain a continual supply of various-sized strawberries.

Best Strawberries to Develop Indoors

  • Alpine strawberry (also called woodland or wild strawberry), a small yet powerfully sweet and fragrant day-neutral
  • Seascape strawberry, a short day-neutral plant that produces large, firm fruits
  • Portola strawberry, an adaptable ever-bearer that offers big, bright berries
  • San Andreas strawberry, a vigorous day-neutral yielding enormous fruits

2. Choose Your Location

Can You Grow Strawberries Indoors? Tips, Tricks, and How-To Guide
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Strawberries need at least 6–8 hrs of sunlight and room to expand. Program an area that will permit you to place your vegetation at the very least 12–18 inches apart. A extended windowsill is an excellent place for space and sunshine. You can also hang plants in person containers or area them in strawberry pots.

A south-facing window will supply the most daylight, but you need to have to keep the crops away from heat sources to stop injury. Stay away from inserting them around stoves, air conditioners, and heating vents.

Sufficient mild is crucial, so you will have to use synthetic LED or fluorescent lights if natural daylight is scarce. Your artificial mild need to be capable to produce the equal of 6 hrs of daylight. If you are expanding your crops below artificial lights, they’ll need at the very least 12–14 hours of mild every single day.


3. Prepare Soil in Your Pot

Can You Grow Strawberries Indoors? Tips, Tricks, and How-To Guide
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Strawberry plants have shallow roots, so you will only require a container about 6–8 inches deep. Make confident that whatsoever bucket, tub, or pot you use has drainage holes in the base to preserve the crops from drowning.

You want nicely-drained loamy soil with wealthy natural make a difference for your indoor strawberry crops. Use organic and natural potting soil with sand and perlite to support with drainage. Mix potting soil with natural subject, these kinds of as compost, sphagnum peat, or humus in a fifty/50 mix. Including natural and organic filler provides nutrients and manages the soil’s pH in the fascinating 5.three to 6.5 assortment.

Incorporate a gradual-launch fertilizer to the potting soil if there isn’t any previously. Use a well balanced 10-ten-ten combine to provide equivalent amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium to your plants.


4. Pot Your Plants

Can You Grow Strawberries Indoors? Tips, Tricks, and How-To Guide
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Ahead of planting your strawberry plants, trim away any runners and lifeless leaves. If you’re making use of bare-root dormant strawberry plants from a nursery or seed catalog, soak the roots for 20–60 minutes in drinking water. Rehydrating them will get them out of their dormancy and all set them for planting.

If the roots are particularly long, trim them back to about 4–5 inches. Plant your strawberry vegetation with the roots unfold out under the soil and the crown lying even with the leading of the soil. Carefully pat the soil to organization it with out compacting it.

Strawberries do not require significantly soil depth, but they want personal plots to develop. If you are utilizing a single container for several plants, it can have soil levels as shallow as 5 inches. But it have to permit for at minimum 12 inches of length amongst vegetation, as overcrowding can trigger expansion and mildew problems.


5. Care for Your Plants

Can You Grow Strawberries Indoors? Tips, Tricks, and How-To Guide
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If provided correct care, a transplanted indoor strawberry plant can start off yielding fruit in as small as 4–6 months. To ensure the fastest and healthiest generate, you must concentrate on your plant’s temperature and daylight exposure, watering timetable, and greenery progress.

Strawberries can tolerate chilly and hot climates, but they prosper in temperatures in between 68°F–75°F. Supply at the very least 6 hours of sunlight but really don't be concerned to give them a crack in the shade if they get as well very hot.

Hold the soil moist but not wet. After established, strawberries like a bit dried soil, so you can go a few days before watering them once again. Check out the leading layer of soil everyday with your hand and include water if the prime inch is dry.

When the crops start to expand bouquets, add natural and organic fertilizer when each 2–3 months.

Pruning

Pruning is essential to include the strawberry plant and encourage fruit growth. To aid the plant establish a healthy root technique and yield far more plentiful crops, trim or pinch off the blooms for the first 6 weeks after planting.

Trim off any runners as nicely. Runners steal energy from root and fruit improvement, and given that there is no require for them in a restricted indoor container, it’s greatest to take away them every time you see them. The good news is, many indoor working day-neutrals, these kinds of as Alpine strawberries, really do not expand a lot of runners, so you might not have to fear way too considerably about upkeep.

Hand-Pollination

You will need to have to pollinate the vegetation given that you will not have wind or bees carrying out it for you. Strawberries self-pollinate to a diploma, but they nonetheless need assist. To hand-pollinate the bouquets, use a Q-idea or modest brush and carefully sweep the pollen from the outer edge of the flower to the pistil in the middle.


6. Harvest the Berries

Can You Grow Strawberries Indoors? Tips, Tricks, and How-To Guide
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After blossoming, strawberries are normally all set for harvest in 4–6 months. After they become a vivid red with little to no environmentally friendly close to the best, you can start selecting. Harvest your berries and enjoy them right away in your favorite desserts, salads, cereals, and more!

Can You Grow Strawberries Indoors? Tips, Tricks, and How-To Guide

Planting Strawberry Seeds

Developing strawberries from seeds is a a lot more labor-intense procedure than developing them from seedlings or runners, but many purists uncover it much more fulfilling. Developed from seeds, you can count on your crops to germinate in 2–4 weeks and start off creating ripe fruit in about 5–6 months beneath excellent situations.

If you are employing a seed packet, stick to the directions on the packaging. In some cases, you can freeze the seeds for a handful of weeks to get ready them for planting. Freezing simulates the winter time, so when you take them out and they warm to space temperature, the seeds commence to get prepared for expansion as if it have been springtime.

After you’re prepared to plant your seeds, adhere to these actions to get a blooming plant.

1. Fill Your Containers

Fill your pots with at the very least 4 inches of ready soil and organic make a difference to get them ready for the seeds. You can also use seed trays to commence your strawberry plants prior to shifting them to bigger pots when they sprout.

2. Sprinkle Seeds on Top of the Soil

Sprinkle seeds in the soil and stick to the package deal directions to make sure you do not bury them as well deep. The most uncomplicated strategy is to place the seeds on top of the soil and incorporate a slender layer of soil or peat moss above them. Give every single seed at the very least a couple of inches of space to preserve their roots from encroaching on one particular one more.

3. Keep Soil Moist and Warm

As you hold out for the seeds to germinate, the soil needs to continue to be moist but not soggy. Check the soil every day and water it carefully as essential to make certain it stays regularly damp. In the meantime, keep the soil heat to stimulate more quickly germination.

If the soil is retained in good issue, seedlings will arise in about 2–3 weeks. Slender them as essential if you aren’t relocating them to an additional pot later on, as you do not want them to turn out to be overcrowded.

Can You Grow Strawberries Indoors? Tips, Tricks, and How-To Guide

Final Thoughts

When you’re ready to transfer on from herbs, strawberry crops are a great up coming step in your indoor developing adventures. They do not want a ton of place and they are willing to increase in a variety of problems, making them reduced-routine maintenance adequate for growers of all ability stages.

The pleasure you will get in growing your plants and the extraordinary flavors of organically grown fruits will make every strawberry fill you with gratification. Follow these measures and suggestions to develop strawberries indoors, and you’ll be certain to enjoy a bountiful and delightful crop with nominal work.


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